Canadian housing starts plunged 22% in November from the previous month and missed estimates by a wide margin as higher borrowing costs hurt groundbreaking on multiple unit and single-family detached urban homes, data from the national housing agency showed on Friday.
The seasonally adjusted annualized rate of housing starts fell to 212,624 units from a downwardly revised 272,264 units in October, the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) said.
… A sharp drop in new building starts will further aggravate a housing crisis in Canada and hurt the popularity of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. His Liberal government has made housing its top priority and has announced a series of measures, including a plan to convert federal properties into new homes by March and to identify more public buildings for home conversion.
