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This article was published 8/2/2017 (1316 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The new year is off to a roaring start for the local home-building industry, with more than twice as many new housing starts recorded last month than in January 2016.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) said a surge in multi-family starts during the month boosted the number of new starts in the Winnipeg Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) by 123 per cent to 634 units from 284 in the first month of last year.

RUTH BONNEVILLE / FREE PRESS FILES

"Total housing starts trended upwards in January as the pace of multi-family construction increased from the previous month," said Heather Bowyer, CMHC’s senior market analyst for Manitoba. "Following elevated inventories that slowed production last year, several new condominium projects boosted construction this month."

The corporation said 498 new multi-family starts were recorded last month in the CMA. That was an increase of 188 per cent from the 173 recorded in January of last year.

While it was multi-family starts that led the charge last month, CMHC noted there was also a 22.5 per cent increase in single-family starts — 136 versus 111.

On a trending basis, starts were trending at 4,802 units in January compared to 4,513 in December. The trend is a six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates (SAAR) of total housing starts. CMHC uses the trend measure as a complement to the monthly SAAR of housing starts to account for considerable swings in monthly estimates, and to obtain a more complete picture of the state of the housing market.

The standalone monthly SAAR for the Winnipeg CMA also increased to 8,112 units from 3,119 in December.

CMHC said the pace of housing starts in Canada also picked up from December. The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts was 207,408 units in January compared to 206,305 in December.

The move higher came as the annual pace of urban starts increased by one per cent to 189,688 units.

The rate of multiple urban starts increased by 4.2 per cent to 125,886 in January, while the rate of single-detached urban starts fell 4.6 per cent to 63,802 units.

Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17,720 units.

Regionally, the annual rate of urban starts increased in Ontario and Atlantic Canada, but fell in British Columbia, the Prairies and Quebec.

— with files from Canadian Press

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca