The headline
The pipeline
Permits become starts, starts become units under construction, and eventually completions. This is the whole page in one chart.
Flows are unadjusted monthly counts (CMHC). The lower panel is the stock of homes under construction — the pipeline's backlog. Permitted units (new dwelling units on residential permits) are only published from 2018. Provincial caveat: CMHC stopped publishing province-level completions and under-construction after 2022 — those two series end there for provinces and Canada, while starts continue. Metro-area views carry all stages to the current month.
What's being built
Housing starts by dwelling type — the decades-long shift from single-detached to apartments.
Homeowner = freehold, built for the owner; condo = built for individual sale; rental = purpose-built rental. Complete calendar years only. Source: CMHC via StatCan 34-10-0148 (centres 10,000+).
Residential vs non-residential
Where permit dollars are going — homes, or industrial / commercial / institutional space. Permit series begin in 2018.
Seasonally adjusted, current dollars.
Industrial / commercial / institutional, seasonally adjusted, current dollars.
What it costs
Two different questions: how the residential building dollar splits between putting up new homes and working on the ones we have, and what the work itself costs to buy.
Across the country
Every province on the same per-capita footing, trailing 12 months.
Metro areas
The major CMAs side by side. Click a column to sort; click a row to switch the whole page to that metro.
Starts and under-construction from CMHC (34-10-0154); permit value and investment are trailing-12-month sums (34-10-0292/0293, unadjusted where noted). Ottawa-Gatineau combines the Ontario and Quebec parts. Rental vacancy is the apartment (6+ units) vacancy rate from CMHC's annual October survey (34-10-0127) — a different vintage from the monthly columns beside it, so read it as context rather than as this month's figure.
Inside one city
Every chart above counts a whole metro area. These come straight from the city's own permit desk — the only address-level data on the page.
The rate cycle
Housing starts against the cost of money. Same time axis, separate scales — hover to read both.
Overnight rate: Bank of Canada target (from 2009). 5-year rate: CMHC conventional mortgage lending rate. Rates are national; starts follow the selected geography.
Net new supply
Permits create dwelling units — but some are lost to demolition and conversion. The gap is what the housing stock actually gains.
All building types, unadjusted, trailing-12-month sums. "Lost" counts units removed via demolition or conversion permits. Series begin 2018.
Can we build it?
Construction employment vs the under-construction backlog — when the lines diverge, each worker is carrying more homes.
Employment: Labour Force Survey, NAICS Construction, seasonally adjusted — all construction, not only residential.
How green is what we build
Every chart above counts homes. This one asks what they're like to heat — the same country, the same years, measured instead of counted.