Canada: Housing starts barely budged in January - NBF

According to National Bank of Canada’s analysts, Jocelyn Paquet, today’s numbers of the Canadian Housing starts report barely budged in January but still managed to top expectations. 

Key Quotes:

“Housing starts edged down marginally in January to an annualized 216.2K. Urban starts were up just 0.4K (to 198.4K) as groundbreakings for single units edged up 0.4K (to 63.7K) and those in the multiple category stagnated (+0.1K at 134.7K). 

“Housing starts barely budged in January but still managed to top expectations (210.0K). Ontario really drove the show in the month, with urban area starts there jumping 20.8K (to 82.2K). Elsewhere, groundbreakings appeared to be taking a breather”

“Looking at quarterly data, housing starts countrywide are on pace to drop 21.2% in annualized terms in Q1 following two strong quarters of  growth in 2017Q3 (+35.6%) and Q4 (+11.8%). For the rest of the year, residential construction faces several headwinds, notably rising interest rates and more stringent rules for mortgage lending (B-20 regulations).”

“The strong labour market should help keeping starts close to levels we consider sufficient to cover demographic needs.”