Canadian Housing Starts (June 2026)

Housing starts pull back in June

• Canadian housing starts came in at 238.9k annualized units in June, marking a 6% month-on-month (m/m) decline from May's level. On a trend basis, the six-month moving average declined modestly to 248.1k units, its lowest level since one year ago. 
• June's decline was roughly evenly spread across segments, with urban multi-family starts down 5.1% m/m to 189.9k units and urban single-detached starts down 7.6% m/m to 37.9k units. 
• Urban starts were down in 5 of 10 provinces: 
   
  • Ontario (-7.4k to 59.3k units), B.C. (-1.8k to 33.5k units), and Alberta (-5.6k to 50.4k units) drove the national decline. An increase in Quebec (+4k to 52.6k units) offset some of the pullback.
  • Elsewhere, Nova Scotia's decline (-5.5k to 5.1k units) accounted for the bulk of the decline in the Atlantic – Newfoundland and New Brunswick saw slight gains on the month. Meanwhile, Manitoba and Saskatchewan registered a gain in starts of 2k and 1k, respectively, in June.  

Key Implications

• Canadian housing starts softened in June, reflecting a residential construction sector that remains constrained by weak market conditions. As a result, Q2 activity was broadly in line with Q1, undershooting our expectation for a mild pickup.
• June's drop is consistent with our view that housing starts are set to grind lower as the year wears on. Headwinds for homebuilding include weak population growth, elevated levels of unsold inventories, climbing rental vacancy rates and past weakness in pre-construction sales. The recent removal of the HST on all new builds in Ontario should spur demand, but lags between pre-sales and starts mean any boost is likely a story for 2027 and 2028.
  
   

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