Housing starts in Ottawa up 68% in first 7 months of 2025

CTV News

4 hours ago

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) says the number of housing starts in Ottawa in the first seven months of 2025 is 68 per cent higher than it was the same time last year.
New figures show there were 6,314 housing starts in Ottawa from January through July 2025, up from 3,750 during the same period last year. There were 1,164 housing starts in Ottawa in July 2025, up 13 per cent from June 2025, and up 27 per cent from July 2024.
Gatineau saw a 16 per cent decline, with 1,571 housing starts in the first seven months of this year compared with 1,861 over the same period in 2024.
Nationally, the CMHC says actual housing starts were up 4 per cent year-over-year in centres with a population of 10,000 or greater, with 23,464 units recorded in July, compared to 22,610 units in July 2024. The year-to-date total was 137,875, up 4 per cent from the same period in 2024.
'Through the first seven months of the year, actual housing starts have remained above 2024 levels, primarily driven by increased multi-unit starts in the Prairie Provinces and Québec,' said CMHC Deputy Chief Economist Tania Bourassa-Ochoa in a news release. 'These persistently elevated national results are reflective of investment decisions made months or even years ago, highlighting the influence of previous market conditions and builder sentiment on current construction trends.'
The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts for Ottawa in July 2025 was 13,869 units, up 14 per cent from June.
The CMHC defines the seasonally adjusted at annual rate as the result of adjusting monthly or quarterly statistics to provides an indication of the annual total which would be achieved if activity in all other months or quarters were at the same level of performance relative to past seasonal patterns.