Kamloops, Kelowna bucking national trend of falling housing starts
At a time when there is a desperate need for more housing, the number of new starts fell 9% in Canada over the first six months of 2023 to 103,330.
BC went in the other direction with a 23% increase in housing starts to 24,216, according to data released by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation today, July 18.
The Kamloops region did even better with a 25% increase this year to 198 starts. Greater Kelowna was up 14% to 1,765.
The overall drop in starts was largely due to Quebec seeing a 48% drop in new housing starts from January through June to 13,710.
Alberta was also down by 16% to 18,900 starts.
Lethbridge had the worst performance of the 42 largest population centres in the country with an 82% drop to a mere 79 housing starts. It has a population of about 133,000, larger than Kamloops but smaller than Kelowna.
Housing starts were up 9% in Ontario to 42,209. Nova Scotia was the only other province to see a growth in housing starts, also at 9%, to 2,525.
The fastest growing population centre was Guelph. It saw a whopping 312% increase to 774 units.
READ MORE: More than half of British Columbians perilously close to insolvency
The overall national trend is not helping Canada get closer to housing affordability.
“We project that if current rates of new construction continue, the housing stock will increase by 2.3 million units between 2021 and 2030,” says a June 2023 Canada Mortgage and Housing report. “To restore affordability, we project Canada will need an additional 3.5 million units.”
That means the pace of construction will have to almost double, especially in fast growing areas like the Thompson-Okanagan.
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