Housing starts up in Winnipeg

April 9, 2009
Winnipeg Free Press
Written by: Kevin Rollason

WINNIPEG is the new Calgary when it comes to building homes.

Bucking a national downturn in building single-detached and multi-family units, Winnipeg actually saw an increase in the number of building starts this March compared with last March.

According to Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp., there were 155 housing units started in Winnipeg last month compared with 142 units in March 2008 -- a nine per cent gain.

"You were definitely bucking the trend across the country," Regine Durand, a CMHC market analyst, said Wednesday.

Durand said the number of housing starts in Canada suffered a 45 per cent decrease in March compared with March 2008.

She said the figures are notably brutal in Abbotsford, B.C., which saw a 96 per cent drop in housing starts from last March, in Calgary, down 90 per cent, Saskatoon, down 85 per cent, and in Edmonton, down 72 per cent.

"Despite the economic meltdown, Winnipeg is fairly weathering the storm. You have a 4.7 per cent unemployment rate where Canada is 8.3 per cent.

"It speaks well for demand in housing there."

Preet Sandhu, part of the 3Y Group Inc., which broke ground Wednesday on a 38-unit town condo development on Templeton Avenue in Garden City, said they are confident about the local economy.

"We know it doesn't matter what's going on elsewhere," Sandhu said.

"People here are still confident in the market. And if they like the area they've lived in their whole lives, they'll buy here. We feel Winnipeg is sort of insulated from what's going on elsewhere. It's a growing city."

Outside Winnipeg, the numbers were a bit more bleak.

Brandon saw its total housing starts drop from 20 units in March 2008 to three in March 2009.

There were three starts in the RM of East St. Paul and four in the RM of Tache.

The RM of St. Andrews saw no starts during the first three months of this year compared with nine during the first quarter last year.

Meanwhile, CMHC said housing starts across the country increased 13.7 per cent in March from the month before.

CMHC said that seasonally adjusted housing starts rose to 154,700 units in March from 136,100 in February, which was a nine-year low.

-- Kevin Rollason, with files from The Canadian Press

Housing starts in Manitoba

-- Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.