Alberta sets record for housing starts in first half of the year, says CMHC

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says Alberta is boasting higher construction activity compared to last year, with housing starts up 54 per cent — setting a record pace over the first six months of the year.

Based on data going back to 1990, the first half of this year is a record for housing starts.

The housing agency released its latest report on Tuesday. It said that over the first six months of the year, Calgary had 11,178 housing starts, which is up 38 per cent compared to the same period last year. Edmonton recorded 8,448, which is up 67 per cent.

"In the first six months, we have over 21,000 housing starts [across Alberta]. That is actually a record-breaking number of housing starts for the first six months in our province's history," Saheb Dullet, director of policy and government relations with BILD Alberta, told the Calgary Eyeopener. 

"If we continue at this pace, we're very much on a pace to break our all-time record, which was set in 2006, when we had just under 40,000 housing starts.

"Very encouraging data in terms of the number of housing starts, and the possibility of living in a record-breaking year."

Calgary Eyeopener7:12BILD Alberta Housing statistics

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Throughout the first half of the year, Canada's six largest census metropolitan areas saw a four per cent combined year-over-year increase from 2023.

"The higher interest rate environment appears to have caught up with some of Canada's major centres as lower multi-unit starts, particularly in Vancouver and Toronto, drove both the (seasonally adjusted annual rate) and trend down in June," wrote CMHC chief economist Bob Dugan in a press release.

"While strong starts growth in June and the first half 2024 in Calgary, Edmonton, and Montreal mitigated some of these decreases, we expect continued downward starts pressure across Canada throughout 2024."

Included in the Alberta numbers are a mix of housing being built, including single detached homes, row housing and multi-family projects.

Dullet said there's been a notable rise when it comes to purpose-built rentals, buildings constructed strictly for the purpose of being rented.

"They're making up 33 per cent of all our housing starts, which is also a record-breaker in itself. To provide a little bit of context, in the last three years, we have built more purpose-built rentals than we have in the previous 15 years," Dullet said.