Housing construction seems to have finally started in Quebec, after a long period of decline and stagnation.
Taking a detailed look at the data published Tuesday by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC), the Association des professionnels de la construction et de l’habitation du Québec (APCHQ) paints a picture of increasing housing starts in almost all Quebec urban centres – except Gatineau and Trois-Rivières – for the month of June.
Mostly apartments
It should be noted that the increase is driven by the construction of new multi-unit housing, the number of construction starts for which increased by 87% in June 2024 compared to June 2023. Since the beginning of the year, the increase is 45% for the first six months of 2024 for dwellings with several units.
Just over 95% of these collective housing units, or 4,350 of them, are apartments. According to the APCHQ, this is one of the best results for a month of June in 28 years after the record recorded in June 2021.
Conversely, construction starts for single-family homes are down slightly, down 4% compared to June last year, but on a cumulative basis since the start of the year, they are still up 8% for the first six months of 2024.
Setbacks in Gatineau and Trois-Rivières
While the Montreal region is leading the way with an explosion in the number of housing starts of all types, an increase of 226% compared to June 2023, the metropolitan regions of Gatineau and Trois-Rivières are exceptions to the rule, recording, respectively, in June 2024, decreases of 65% and 67% in the number of housing starts compared to June 2023.
Everywhere else, the trend is upward.
For example, in the comparison of June 2024 compared to June 2023, the number of housing starts increases by 144% in Drummondville, 128% in Sherbrooke, 44% in Quebec and 2% in Saguenay.
In smaller towns with more than 10,000 inhabitants, the average increase is 14%, but the figures vary widely from one municipality to another.
The APCHQ did not break down the data so that single-family homes could be distinguished from collective housing by region, but since there were ten times more collective housing than single-family homes started in June in Quebec, we can assume that a large part of the increases are due to the start of construction of collective housing in most regions.