Housing starts off to hot start

Local homebuilders roared out of the starting gate in 2012, taking advantage of unseasonably warm weather to bang out nearly three times as many housing starts in January as in the first month of 2011.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) said Wednesday there were 348 single- and multi-family starts recorded during the month in the Winnipeg Census Metropolitan Area, which includes Winnipeg and 10 neighbouring municipalities.

That was nearly triple the 122 recorded in January of last year, with both sides of the new-homes market contributing to the surge. Single-family starts jumped by 18.3 per cent to 136 units from 115 a year earlier, while the number of multi-family starts soared to 212 units from a mere seven.

"This represents the fourth consecutive month of year-over-year increases (in single-family starts)," said Dianne Himbeault, CMHC's senior market analyst for Manitoba. "The favourable weather has allowed single-detached builders to maintain their momentum into 2012."

Some bank economists have been forecasting a housing-market slowdown this year in Canada, and CMHC said the pace of housing starts did slow slightly last month.

The seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts for Canada was 197,900 units, down from 199,900 units in December, blamed mainly on a decline in multiple-unit starts in the Atlantic region and Quebec.

But there were no signs of a slowdown in the Winnipeg area, and Manitoba Home Builders Association president Mike Moore agreed the warm weather was a factor. But not as big a factor as some might think, he said, because there were also some pretty windy days, "and you can't work on multi-family projects if it's a windy day."

While it was a good month for combined starts, Himbeault said it wasn't the best January on record. She said there was at least one other in the last five years that had even more multi-family starts.

Moore said it had to be one of the best Januarys ever for single-detached starts.

"Those are some really great numbers," he said. "And one of the nice things about this is that... multi-family and single-detached both saw healthy increases. It wasn't one taking away from the other."

Himbeault said demand for multi-family units continues to be driven by people looking for rental housing and first-time buyers and empty-nesters looking for condominiums.

-- with files by Postmedia News

murray.mcneill@freepress.mb.ca

Banks pull back

TORONTO -- After briefly offering record-low rates of less than three per cent on some of its mortgages in response to its rivals, Canada's two biggest banks have pulled back their offers prematurely.

Toronto-Dominion Bank, Canada's second-largest bank, raised its special four-year closed fixed-rate mortgage 40 basis points to 3.39 per cent, effective Wednesday, while also introducing a special five-year closed fixed-rate mortgage at 4.04 per cent.

The bank also hiked its five-year closed mortgage 10 basis points to 5.24 per cent.

TD had said it would offer the special rates until Feb. 29.

The moves put TD back in line with Royal Bank of Canada, which made the same rate decisions on Monday, coming into effect Wednesday.

-- Postmedia News

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 9, 2012 B8