Canadian Housing Starts (November 2025)

Housing starts rise in November

• Canadian housing starts climbed 9% month-on-month (m/m) to an elevated 254.1k units in November, partially offsetting October's 17% m/m decline. Stripping away monthly volatility, the six-month moving average of starts decreased 2% m/m to 264.4k units.
• In urban markets, November's gain was driven by the multi-family sector, where starts rose by 24.4k (to 193.8k units). Meanwhile, single-detached starts were down 3% m/m to 39.7k units.
• Starts increased in 5 of 10 provinces last month. 
  • The national gain was driven by Manitoba (+7.4k to 14.1k units), and Ontario (+11.7k to 55.1k units). However, starts in the former marked a high point since at least 1990, while Ontario merely climbed off October's lows. Starts were also up in B.C. (+6.3k to 41.6k units) and the Atlantic (+5.8k to 22.8k units), driven by New Brunswick. 
  • In contrast, starts pulled back in Alberta (-4.3k to 53.6k units), Saskatchewan (-4.6k to 3.4k units) and Quebec (-0.5k to 63.5k units).

Key Implications

• There's not much surprise that housing starts flared higher in November after the prior month's outsized decline. November's gain is also in line with the rise in building permits observed in October. Ontario continues to stick out as the weakest province (by far) in terms of homebuilding, constrained by retrenching condo construction and, to a lesser extent, weakness in other types of ownership units. In contrast, starts are trending near record highs in the Atlantic and Prairies (and are well above-average in Quebec) lifted by rental construction. 
• Even with November's gain, Canadian housing starts are cooling on a trend basis. This is consistent with our expectation that homebuilding will ease next year, as modest population growth weighs on rents, and weak pre-sales activity feeds through to weak starts in the ownership market.     

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