Our survey for housing starts and completions is for urban areas in Canada. Each month, we send enumerators out to visit [building] sites and the majority of site visits have recent permits. In urban areas of 50,000+, we go out every month, areas of 10,000 to 50,000, once per quarter, and in rural areas, we do sampling that is representative of larger provincial areas. |
The high number of housing starts in January is consistent with the strong level of existing home sales over the latter half of 2005. Single home starts were particularly strong, registering their highest level since January 1990. |