housing
IF YOU START IT...ONE DAY YOU'LL BE DONE As communities around BC aim to build more homes to support expanding populations, some comfort can be taken that much progress was made last year in the form of record-high housing starts.
Growing our housing supply will be crucial to accommodating future population growth in BC (two million additional residents are coming per BC Stats’ projections we discussed earlier). It can take years to build new homes, particularly apartments and condos, so this housing stock growth can’t happen overnight. But when we look at housing starts from last year, progress has been made with a provincial total at nearly 48,000, 11% more than the previous high. Looking at where those starts occurred, the lion’s share (69%) were in Metro Vancouver,
while 11% were in Greater Victoria where more than 4,800 homes were started last year, 4% more than the previous high back in 2021. Interestingly, within Greater Victoria, only three municipalities also set a record for starts (Esquimalt, View Royal, and Central Saanich), while seven municipalities saw above-average starts. What’s clear is that the increase was broad-based but there is plenty more opportunity for that number to grow in particular areas of the region, though there are other factors that can constrain construction activity like availability of labour, interest rates, and market conditions.
BC BUILDING BOOM
600%
488%
500%
+54% 2023 starts vs. past 10-year avg.
400%
314%
274%
300%
200%
100%
64%
36%
29%
23%
0%
-4%
-12%
-44%
-50%
-65%
-71%
-100%
DATA: % DIFFERENCE IN HOUSING STARTS, 2023 VS. PAST 10-YEAR AVERAGE, BY CSD, VICTORIA
SOURCE: CMHC
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