Canadian housing starts rose faster than economists forecast in November led by gains in Vancouver, adding to evidence the country's real estate market remains stable.
The annual pace of home starts rose 4.4% to 215,941 units on a seasonally adjusted basis, the Ottawa-based Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Monday. That exceeded the 198,000 unit median forecast in a Bloomberg survey of economists.
The housing market is showing fresh momentum after declines in starts and existing home sales earlier this year amid rising mortgage rates. Statistics Canada also reported Monday that residential building permits advanced for a second month, with the 4.2% rise for October the biggest since January.
"While we still expect home building to be a drag on the economy next year, the pickup in recent months is encouraging for residential investment towards the end to 2018," Royce Mendes, a CIBC Capital Markets economist in Toronto, wrote in a research note.
Multiple urban starts increased 3.9% to 151,596 units in November, and single-detached urban starts rose 7.8% to 50,458 units. Work on new homes in Vancouver increased 26% to 17,924 units, CMHC figures showed.
