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To check whether new home construction is increasing in your Canadian market, start with Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) housing starts for your city’s census metropolitan area (CMA) or census agglomeration, if available. Look at both the six-month trend and actual year-over-year starts, then check permits, completions and the construction pipeline. Keep the geography, period and dwelling types consistent: a national rise, a permit increase or a busy completion month alone does not prove that builders are starting more homes in your market.
What should you measure to tell whether construction is increasing?
Use housing starts as your main measure of construction that has actually begun. Then read starts alongside permits, units under construction, completions and approved units awaiting a start. Those indicators describe different stages of the homebuilding process; none can stand in for all the others.
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CMHC describes its Starts and Completions Survey as providing objective, accurate and timely information on actual new residential construction. Its survey records construction milestones through field visits, while permits offer an earlier signal of projects that may proceed. Statistics Canada’s housing-supply toolkit likewise explains that permits, starts and completions are related but distinct indicators.
| Measure | What it tells you | What it cannot tell you by itself |
|---|---|---|
| Building permits | Approved or intended projects; an early signal of possible future construction | Whether or when work actually began |
| Housing starts | New residential construction that has begun | Whether a unit will be completed, occupied or affordable |
| Units under construction | The active construction pipeline | How many new projects started in the period |
| Completions | Homes completed during the period | Whether starts are increasing now; completions may come from earlier starts |
| Approved units awaiting a start | Projects approved but not yet recorded as started | Whether every approved unit will proceed |
CMHC defines a start as the beginning of construction work on the building where a dwelling unit will be located. That is a useful boundary: a permit is not a start, and a start is not a finished home.
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How do you check housing starts for your CMA?
Use CMHC’s monthly housing-starts and construction tables to locate the series for the smallest geography that matches your question. Start with the CMA or census agglomeration (CA) where possible, and record the series name and coverage before comparing dates.
- Define the market. Decide whether you mean a CMA, a CA, a municipality, a neighbourhood or a wider region. Use the same boundary throughout the comparison. If the question is specifically about a municipality and CMHC does not provide a matching series, use municipal permit records as a supplement and state that the two sources cover different geographies.
- Find the local starts series. In CMHC’s monthly housing starts and construction data tables, identify the geography, period, dwelling category and measure. Do not compare one city’s actual count with another city’s seasonally adjusted annual rate as though they were the same unit.
- Record the release date and data label. Note whether the value is an actual count, seasonally adjusted, or seasonally adjusted at an annual rate (SAAR), as labeled by the source. These are not interchangeable. Keep a copy of the table or source link so you can identify revisions later.
- Compare a useful span of time. Check the latest six-month trend for the direction of underlying activity and compare actual starts with the same months a year earlier. Add year-to-date actual starts to see how the current year is progressing. One month can be unusually strong or weak; CMHC cautions against drawing a trend from just two observations.
- Split the totals by dwelling type. Compare single-family homes, townhouses or small condominiums, and apartments where the data allows. This shows whether an overall gain is broad-based or concentrated in one kind of housing.
- Check the other construction stages. Look at permits, units under construction, completions and approved units awaiting starts. These help explain why starts may rise or fall without a matching change in homes delivered that month.
CMHC’s survey coverage varies by place: it is monthly in larger centres, quarterly in urban areas with populations of 10,000–49,999, and provincially estimated for some smaller areas. Areas without permits may require local sources or other enumeration. A local comparison should therefore include a coverage note, especially when the series is estimated or its collection frequency differs from that of a neighbouring market. See the CMHC survey methodology for how the survey is conducted.
Which time periods should you compare?
Use more than one time window because each answers a different question. The six-month trend helps smooth monthly volatility; year-over-year comparisons address seasonality; and year-to-date totals show the cumulative pace so far this year.
- Month over month: useful for spotting a recent change, but especially noisy. If you use it, compare like-for-like measures and avoid treating one move as a durable shift.
- Six-month trend: useful for judging whether starts are broadly moving up or down after short-term ups and downs are smoothed. Read the exact label in the CMHC table; a trend or annualized figure is not the number of homes that physically started in one month.
- Year over year: compare a month or period with the same month or period the prior year. This reduces the risk of mistaking a seasonal pattern for growth.
- Year to date: compare January through the latest available month with the same months a year earlier. Make sure both periods have the same number of months.
Write down the basis for each figure beside the number—for example, “actual starts, January–September, centres of 10,000 or more”—rather than recording a bare percentage. A percentage can sound definitive while concealing a different geography, seasonal adjustment or dwelling mix.
Do rising building permits mean construction is picking up?
Not necessarily. Permits indicate approved or intended construction and can lead starts, but the project still has to move from approval to work on site. CMHC reports permit-to-start delays of roughly 2–10 months for single-detached projects and 9–15 months for high-rise structures, so a rise in permits may precede a start increase by months.
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Use permits as a forward-looking clue, not confirmation. If permits rise while starts remain flat, construction may be in the approval-to-start pipeline. If permits fall but starts rise, work may be beginning on projects approved earlier. The CMHC explanation of permits as an early indicator discusses why permits can lead starts.
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How can you tell whether builders are starting more homes or completions are catching up?
Compare starts with completions and units under construction over the same geography and period. Starts track new construction activity; completions track homes finishing now, often from projects that began earlier. A market can therefore deliver many homes while recording fewer new starts.
Also check approved units awaiting a start. A large or growing backlog can indicate that many approved homes have not yet crossed the start milestone, but it does not guarantee they will all proceed. In August 2026, CMHC reported 142,423 approved units awaiting a start nationally, up 0.7% from July. That figure describes the national pipeline, not the outlook for any one municipality; use the corresponding local series for a local conclusion.
Units under construction add another useful perspective. If starts ease while the under-construction stock remains high and completions rise, current deliveries may reflect a large earlier pipeline. Conversely, rising starts do not mean those units will be completed immediately. Permits can be followed by long delays, project cancellations or changes in unit counts, so avoid turning a starts figure into a forecast of homes available to move into.
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How should you compare apartments with detached homes?
Compare each dwelling category separately as well as the total. An increase in apartment starts can lift the headline market total even if detached-home construction is declining, while a strong detached result can mask weaker multi-unit activity.
Keep categories consistent across periods and sources. CMHC’s available groupings may include single-family, townhouse or small-condominium, and apartment categories; use the labels in the particular table rather than assuming every source defines housing types identically. If a municipality publishes permit categories that do not match CMHC’s starts categories, describe the mismatch rather than combining them into a single trend.
When comparing two markets, use the same observation window and measure, then compare the dwelling mix, starts, permits, completions, under-construction units and approved-but-not-started units. A larger city may have more starts in absolute terms simply because it has more households and projects. The question “which market is increasing faster?” is different from “which market is building more homes?” State whether you are comparing counts or growth rates, and do not mix the two.
What do the latest national figures show—and what do they not show?
Recent national releases illustrate why the answer depends on the measure and date. CMHC’s September 2026 figures put the six-month national starts trend at 250,411 units, up 0.6% from August. Yet actual starts in centres with populations of at least 10,000 were 19,984 in September, down 11% from September 2025; January–September actual starts in those centres totalled 170,964, down 4% from the same span of 2025. These figures use different time comparisons: a modest increase in a smoothed trend can coexist with weaker actual starts against the prior year.
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1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesCMHC’s August 2026 release reported a six-month trend of 244,149 units, down 1.3% from July. Housing, Infrastructure and Communities Canada reported a six-month national starts trend of 248,378 units in March 2026, down 2.9% from the previous six-month period. Do not stitch these release figures into a single uninterrupted series without checking the measure, period and revisions in the underlying tables. Use the latest consistent extract for a current comparison.
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National totals also conceal regional divergence. Federal reporting for 2025 showed starts down 13% in Ontario and 5% in British Columbia, while they were up 80% in Yukon, 42% in Saskatchewan, 32% in Quebec and 31% in Nova Scotia. Those provincial changes demonstrate why a Canada-wide headline cannot answer whether construction is increasing in your city.
Different indicators can also move at different rates over a long period. Statistics Canada’s toolkit reports that over 12 years in Vancouver, the index for new dwellings in permits rose 97.6%, the housing-starts index rose 70.3% and a residential-investment-based indicator rose 124.9%. These indexed changes are not counts of homes and do not establish a current trend; they show that even closely related indicators can tell different parts of the story.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What are the most common mistakes when reading local construction data?
The biggest errors come from treating unlike figures as comparable or treating an early signal as a completed outcome. Before calling a local trend, check these points:
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Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsFree Scan →- Using national data to answer a local question: a national rise may coexist with a decline in your province or CMA. Find the closest available local series.
- Calling permits “homes being built”: a permit is not proof that construction started. Check starts for confirmation.
- Equating starts with move-in-ready homes: starts, completions, occupancy and affordability are separate facts.
- Comparing actual counts with adjusted or annualized figures: retain the source’s measure and label each figure clearly.
- Mixing geographies or coverage: a municipality’s permit register may not cover the same territory or projects as a CMHC CMA series.
- Drawing a conclusion from one or two months: use several observations and a smoothed trend, plus an appropriate year-over-year comparison.
- Ignoring dwelling mix: total starts can conceal opposing trends in apartments and detached homes.
- Assuming approvals will all proceed: projects can be delayed, cancelled or revised, and approved units awaiting starts are not guaranteed homes.
How should you report your conclusion?
Summarize the result with the market, period, measure and caveat in one sentence. For example: “In the CMA’s latest available data, the six-month starts trend is higher, but actual starts year to date are lower than the same period last year; the increase is concentrated in apartments, while completions are drawing on the existing construction pipeline.” Only use that wording if the local data actually supports each clause.
For a defensible check, retain the CMHC release or table date, geography, dwelling categories, seasonal-adjustment label and comparison period. State clearly if you supplemented CMHC data with a municipal permit register, since permits and starts represent different stages and coverage may differ. The result is a more precise answer than simply saying that “construction is up” or “housing starts are down.”
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Frequently Asked Questions
Where can I find housing starts data for a Canadian city?
CMHC’s housing-market data pages provide downloadable housing-starts and construction tables organized by geography and period. If a municipality is smaller than the available CMHC series, check its planning or building department for local permit records, but label those as permits rather than starts.
What does SAAR mean in housing-starts data?
SAAR means seasonally adjusted annual rate: a seasonally adjusted pace expressed as an annual rate, not the literal number of homes that began construction during that month. Read the table’s definition and keep SAAR figures separate from actual counts.
Can CMHC revise housing-starts figures after publication?
Housing estimates and previously published observations can be revised as data are updated. When tracking a market over time, note the release date and use one consistent table extract for each comparison rather than assuming figures copied from older releases are unchanged.
Why might a small town have less frequent housing-starts data than a large city?
CMHC’s survey frequency and estimation approach vary with the size and coverage of the area. Smaller places may be surveyed quarterly or estimated provincially, so local municipal records can add detail but may not be directly comparable to the CMHC series.
