‘Strongest’ year since 2008
Image: The Canadian Press
The number of new homes being built in Kelowna fell slightly last month, but remained significantly higher than the same time last year.
This spring the city broke housing starts records, and while the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation says new construction has “cooled” compared to then, it’s still significant in Kelowna.
Jonathan Rotondo, a senior media relations officer at CMHC, says 2017 has been “one of the strongest years for new construction since prior to 2008” in Kelowna.
So far this year, construction has begun on a total of 1,855 new homes in the city, compared to just 993 over the same period in 2016.
Rotondo points out that much of the new construction is of new rental apartments, which make up approximately 82 per cent of multi-unit starts, and about 65 per cent to total housing starts so far this year.
Meanwhile, the number of new homes started in Victoria dropped from 2016 to 2017, with 1,588 started last year by the end of June compared to 1,218 this year.
Although the city isn’t reaching the record-setting numbers it did last year, the CMHC says the month-over-month trend is upward, as new rental projects are initiated in Langford.
Vancouver’s housing starts also dropped slightly compared to last year, with 12,200 new homes started from January to June, compared to 14,840 over the same period last year. CMHC says that, given the strong housing starts activity in the past year and the record number of units now under construction, it is not surprising to see starts trend downward there.
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