OTTAWA -- Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. says the pace of housing starts in January held steady compared with December.
The housing agency said Thursday the seasonally adjusted annual rate of housing starts came in at 216,210 units in January. That compared with a rate of 216,275 units in December.
Economists had expected an annual pace of 210,000, according to Thomson Reuters.
"Canadian homebuilders didn't seem to be impacted by a cold January," Royal Bank economist Josh Nye wrote in a brief report.
"New construction has been solid despite slower home sales last year, though a pullback in single unit construction in Ontario relative to a year ago does seem to reflect softness in that segment of the resale market."
However Nye noted that the pace of housing starts is expected to slow this year.
The January result came as the pace of urban starts increased by 0.2 per cent in January to 198,400 units.
Multiple urban starts -- generally apartment buildings, townhouses and condominiums -- essentially held steady at 134,685 units in January while single-detached urban starts increased by 0.6 per cent to 63,715 units.
Rural starts were estimated at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 17,810 units.
The six-month moving average of the monthly seasonally adjusted annual rates was 224,865 units in January compared with 226,346 in December.
