Despite a crisis and scores of housing announcements across the country, housing starts across Canada were down seven per cent last year from 2022.
Ground broke on over 223,513 new homes in urban areas with a population of more than 10,000, compared to 240,590 the year before.
The Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation said single-detached housing starts dropped 25 per cent.
The agency has said the country needs at least 3.5-million new homes by 2030 to fix the housing crisis.
CMHC's Chief Economist was still pleased by the results.
"Following record and near-record highs in 2021 and 2022, housing starts dipped in 2023 but still significantly outperformed expectations," he said. "The decline was driven mainly by a sharp drop-off in single-detached starts and tighter economic conditions affecting multi-unit starts in the year's final quarter."
The monthly figures were rosier. Monthly seasonally adjusted annual rate starts increased 20 per cent in December, while multi-unit urban starts jumping 26 per cent. Single-detached urban starts decreased by two per cent last month.
Across Ontario, housing starts increased 11 per cent, as construction started on 54,113 single-detached and 67,851 multi-unit homes.
Windsor's seasonally adjusted annual rate housing starts stumbled in December. Single-detached homes were down 24 per cent, 81 per cent for multi-unit projects, for a total drop of 65 per cent.