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Small bump in housing starts

The Oshawa area saw a small bump is housing starts to end the year, according to new numbers from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).

The last month of 2015 saw 2,710 housing starts in the Oshawa census metropolitan area – which also includes Whitby and Clarington – compared to 2,682, based on a six-month moving average, according to CMHC.

“Despite a slight pull-back in single-detached construction in Oshawa CMA, row starts trended higher, supporting marginal increase in total housing starts in December. Actual starts in 2015 grew by more than 50 per cent, as this relatively affordable community continues to gain popularity among homebuyers,” states Andrew Scott, CMHC’s senior market analyst for the GTA, in a news release. “Furthermore, rental apartment starts, which reached a 25 year high, have also contributed to this year’s increase.”

Provincially, the number was down, going to 73,916 units in December, down from 74,609 units in November.

“The provincial trend in residential starts declined slightly in December. The December trend was fairly stable across the province with the exception of the Toronto and Ottawa CMAs, which both experienced slight declines due to lower apartment starts,” states Ted Tsiakopoulos, CMHC’s Ontario regional economist, in a separate news release. “However, annual actual starts for Ontario were 68,293 in 2015, up from 56,162 in 2014. Low mortgage rates along with better labour market conditions supported housing demand in 2015.”

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