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August housing starts slow

The number of single detached homes may have dropped for the month of August, but local homebuilders are happy with the general upward trend of housing starts.

The number of single detached homes may have dropped for the month of August, but local homebuilders are happy with the general upward trend of housing starts.
According to numbers released by the Canadian Mortgage Housing Corporation, only nine homes were built last month compared to 24 in 2011. One multiple family project was also started, compared to none last August.
Canadian Home Builders' Association of Northern BC executive officer Mark Peil said he wasn't sure what specifically prompted the decline, but he did say there is a lull in building every fall.
"Everyone's waiting for what's going to happen in the fall and sometimes there's some hold back there at the end of the summer," he said.
But Peil said the association's membership is happy with the year-to-date numbers the corporation published, which suggest housing starts are up 24 per cent overall from 2011 with 143 single and multiple family homes started in the Prince George area compared to last year's 115.
"Of course we'd always like to see it better, but having a steady increase the way that we've been having is probably better in the long term," he said.