Housing starts drop in April, as multi-unit and single-family starts slow

OTTAWA – Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the annual pace of new housing starts fell 15 per cent last month compared with March.

The Ottawa-based federal agency says the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 214,098 units in April, down from 252,305 in March.

Economists had expected an annual rate of 210,000 for April, according to Thomson Reuters.

The move lower came as the pace of multi-unit urban starts fell 16.7 per cent and single-detached urban starts dropped 12.1 per cent.

Rural starts were an estimated 14,613 units at the seasonally adjusted rate.

However, the dip in April wasn’t big enough to stop the six-month moving average from rising to 213,768 units for the month compared with 210,702 in March.