Housing starts climbed in Windsor and across the country last month.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says that Canada-wide, construction started on 39 per cent more homes in urban centres with a population of 10,000 or more. Ground broke on 21,652 units in May, compared to 15,606 a year ago.
"The focus for homebuilders remains on multi-unit construction in Canada's major centres as both the SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate) and trend of housing starts increased in May, following two consecutive months of decline," said CMHC's Chief Economist Bob Dugan. "While this is good news for housing supply, we do expect downward pressure on starts through the rest of 2024."
The CMHC uses the trend measure in conjunction with the SAAR rate of housing starts to account for swings in monthly estimates and obtain a clearer picture of the upcoming new housing supply.
In Windsor, construction on single-detached homes rose 24 per cent in May. Work began on 31 new homes compared to 25 in May 2023. The number of multi-unit projects rose from 44 last year to 86 last month, an increase of 95 per cent. Overall, housing starts climbed 70 per cent.
In Ontario, housing starts rose 23 per cent overall.
Meanwhile, housing sales in Windsor and Essex County dropped 19.86 per cent in May. Realtors sold 464 residential properties compared to 464 a year ago.
It was the third consecutive month housing sales fell. However, they were up 2.6 per cent from April and 2.3 per cent this year.
The average price to buy a home in the region dipped 4.14 per cent from $599,826 in May 2023 to $575,014.
Listings climbed 11.91 per cent. Realtors put 1,240 properties on the market, an increase of 14.6 per cent from April.
Listings are up 9.83 per cent for 2024, and there were 1,719 properties on the market when the Windsor Essex County Association of Realtors published May's statistics.
