Latest news with #CanadaMortgageAndHousingCorporation
CTV News
11 hours ago
- Business
- CTV News
Housing starts in Ottawa up 68% in first 7 months of 2025
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.
CBC
22-07-2025
- Business
- CBC
More homes needed to restore housing affordability: CMHC
The price of housing in Nova Scotia hasn't come back down to pre-pandemic levels. Now a report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation suggests the pace of housing construction in Nova Scotia needs to increase by more than double over the next decade to get there. Andrew Lam has the story.
Yahoo
16-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Signs of slowing rental market in Halifax, but affordability challenges persist: CMHC report
The rental market in Halifax is showing signs of slowing down, but that's not translating to improved affordability for tenants, according to a new mid-year update report from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In the first three months of the year, advertised rents for new listings of purpose-built, two-bedroom apartments in Halifax were down 4.2 per cent compared to the same quarter in 2024. A CMHC economist said this easing of asking rents is mainly the result of fewer people moving to Halifax. "The demand is a little bit weaker than it was a year or two before," said Lukas Jasmin-Tucci, pointing to reduced migration from other provinces and changes in federal immigration policies. However, there were still increases in overall rents. Jasmin-Tucci said it's as though there are two different markets in the city. "We have the high-priced, more recent buildings … where we see slowdown, less demand," he said. "But if we look at older buildings, cheaper rents, it still remains very tight in those [areas]." According to the report, the difference in prices between older and newer apartment buildings has narrowed across major cities in Canada. Previous CBC News analysis showed that rents for some of Halifax's oldest and most affordable apartments rose rapidly between 2020 and 2024. Jasmin-Tucci said Halifax has seen its largest increase in housing supply on record for the first half of the year. More than 1,000 housing units have been completed since January. "For a long period we had a lot of starts, [a] lot less completions," said Jasmin-Tucci. "That's not the case anymore." But one affordable housing researcher raised concern about the types of new housing being built. The report pointed to two CMHC programs as drivers of increased rental housing supply in Canada. Catherine Leviten-Reid said one of those, the Apartment Construction Loan Program, which was formerly known as the Rental Construction Financing Initiative, doesn't result in housing that's affordable. "While we're seeing new units being built, we're not seeing units being built for people who are most in need," said Leviten-Reid, an associate professor at Cape Breton University. According to a 2023 report from a council that advises the federal housing minister, the Rental Construction Financing Initiative was the largest national housing strategy program, but produced "the least amount of affordable housing for people in core housing need." Overall, in Leviten-Reid's view, low-income earners in Halifax still face "a very difficult situation" when it comes to housing affordability. In major Canadian cities, "more tenants are expected to turn to shared living arrangements" due to ongoing affordability challenges, the CMHC report said. That could boost demand for apartments with three or more bedrooms while making it harder for landlords to lease smaller units. The CMHC forecasts an increase in the apartment vacancy rate in Halifax, potentially reaching three per cent this year, said Jasmin-Tucci. Last year, the figure rose above two per cent. He said it's the first time Canada's housing agency has provided a mid-year rental market update since it moved to conducting just one annual housing survey, adding that the CMHC saw a need for people to be informed more frequently. MORE TOP STORIES
National Post
28-05-2025
- Business
- National Post
Michael Bonner: We need an immigration policy that will serve all Canadians
Article content To make it all happen, Ottawa should create a new 'population' ministry, formed out of every existing federal ministry and department that deals with immigration, housing, the labour market and family formation (such as Employment and Social Development Canada and the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation). Article content Of course, this is no small task and would take time. But the main policy areas (immigration, housing, labour, parental benefits and population growth) must be viewed as a single system, and a single ministry must be held accountable for the success or failure of future reforms. Article content In consultation with the provinces, this new ministry would be required to keep immigration at a manageable level, taking into account the state of infrastructure, housing and integration services, along with labour market needs. Artificial Intelligence could be a useful tool in helping predict labour and housing shortages before they happen. Article content This consolidated ministry would favour high-skill, high-wage immigration above all other categories. And, like some other countries, the ministry would be required to publish total immigration numbers, along with all other relevant population and labour-market information, as part of every federal budget, to ensure maximum transparency. Article content This ministry would also work with the provinces to develop pro-natal strategies to stabilize or, ideally, reverse the decline in domestic birth rates. This should be informed by successful policies implemented by our peers abroad. Article content Incentives could include cash bonuses, tax breaks, awards, more generous leave and other signs of public esteem for parenthood. Meanwhile, governments across the country must remove regulatory hurdles and revisit post-war mass production and prefabrication, in order to increase the supply of new housing. Article content Canada's immigration policy has failed Canadians. But if properly managed, a new population policy, which includes immigration, can be a powerful force for nation-building and help create and maintain a prosperous and orderly society in an increasingly uncertain world. Article content Article content Article content
