Canadian Construction Industry Still Going Strong
Despite negative predictions from analysts last year, Canada’s housing industry is still going strong, setting new records by the month.
The most recent industry report, which was issued on Wednesday by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp, revealed that work began on 247,900 new residential housing units in January, a 6.5% increase over the 232,600 units initiated in December.
This increase was observed across single-family homes, apartments, and condos alike, but the numbers were strongest for houses, which have now hit their highest level since January 1990.
CMHC economist, Brent Weimer, says that these strong numbers are consistent with the high level of existing property sales in the last two quarters of 2005. He expects this trend to ebb off by the end of 2006, due to higher real estate prices and climbing mortgage rates.