{"id":15983,"date":"2023-04-19T15:34:54","date_gmt":"2023-04-19T15:34:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/canadian-housing-starts-fall\/"},"modified":"2023-04-19T15:36:32","modified_gmt":"2023-04-19T15:36:32","slug":"canadian-housing-starts-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/canadian-housing-starts-slow\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian housing starts slow as BoC rate hikes weigh"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Fergal Smith<\/p>\n<p>TORONTO (Reuters) -Canadian housing starts fell more than expected in March, contributing to a slower trend in recent months that follows a rapid increase in borrowing costs, data from the national housing agency showed on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>The seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of housing starts fell 11% to 213,865 units from a revised 240,927 units in February, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) said. Economists had expected starts to fall to 237,800.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The SAAR of housing starts and the trend appear to be returning to pre-pandemic levels,&#8221; Bob\u00a0Dugan, CMHC&#8217;s\u00a0chief\u00a0economist, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;With interest rates remaining high, it continues to be challenging for developers and homebuilders to get projects started.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Bank of Canada has lifted its benchmark interest rate to a 15-year high of 4.50% to tackle inflation. It paused its tightening campaign in March after eight consecutive rate hikes.<\/p>\n<p>For the first quarter, starts averaged 223,000, the weakest quarter since the depth of the COVID-19 pandemic in early-2020, Robert Kavcic, a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, said in a note.<\/p>\n<p>The slowdown in residential construction could frustrate Canadian government plans to ease a supply shortfall and keep up with record population growth.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We are still seeing a historically robust level of activity, but the downward turn is going to confound policymakers that have been pushing for a doubling of output,&#8221; Kavcic said.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Fergal Smith; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Andrea Ricci)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/canadian-housing-starts-fall\/real-estate-sings-in-toronto\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3I0FC-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3I0FC-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Fergal Smith TORONTO (Reuters) -Canadian housing starts fell more than expected in March, contributing to a slower trend in recent months that follows a rapid increase in borrowing costs, data from the national housing agency showed on Wednesday. The seasonally adjusted annualized rate (SAAR) of housing starts fell 11% to 213,865 units from a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":15984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-15983","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3I0FC-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15983"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16272,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15983\/revisions\/16272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15983"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15983"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15983"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}