So are February statistics from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation good news or bad?

Well, let’s have a look at some highlights.

Rate of housing starts (seasonally adjusted) in 2009

Rate of housing starts (seasonally adjusted) in 2008

The anomaly to the decrease in housing starts is in Atlantic Canada’s urban centres, where new builds actually increased by 10.8% in February, to 8,200 units. The rest of urban Canada:

So, aside from the struggling economy, what caused the housing starts to drop by nearly 20,000 in February ’09, from the month prior? Well, the CMHC says fewer houses were sold in February, while more were put on the market. New listings in February rose 1.6% to 70,797 units, up from January’s 69,706. The flooded real estate market has given potential buyers more options, and less need to build.

As the economic instability continues, the housing market moves closer and closer to a buyer’s market. That continuing shift resulted in an 8.6% increase in February home sales (28,669) from January (26,388). This rebound pales in comparison to February 2008 though, as the sales in the second month of ’08 were 30.9% higher.

So, while sellers had a better chance of moving their home in February, chances are good they didn’t get the dollars they were hoping for. The average sale price of MLS homes in February dropped 1.3% from January, to $279,598, while the average price is down a whopping 9.1% from February 2008.

As more houses hit the market and builders slow their pace, employees in the construction trade have taken a hard hit, as 43,000 positions were lost in February, continuing a decline that has seen 6.4% of construction workers be let go since October, 2008.

So if you’re in the market to buy, you are firmly in the driver’s seat. Although more homes were sold in February, the average price was lower. Be diligent, shop around and drive a hard bargain – you should be able to find yourself a deal in today’s housing market.

In addition, the seasonally adjusted annual rate of urban starts were down 21.6% In November 2008 to 144,800 units, with urban multiple starts down 29% (81,700 units) and urban single starts down 9% (63,100).

The decrease was seen right across Canada:

The CMHC also said they expect that 2009 Canadian Housing Starts will decline to 178,000 units.

For the year to date the total housing starts were down 1.6% compared to the same period last year which taking everything that’s happened so far doesn’t seem to be that bad. Actual urban single starts for the January to October period of this year were 16.3% lower than they were a year earlier while urban multiple starts were up by 11.6% over the same period.

“Housing starts remained strong in October and are consistent with our new home construction forecast for 2008,” said Bob Dugan, Chief Economist at CMHC’s Market Analysis Centre. “The slight decrease in housing starts is the result of declines in both single-detached and multiple starts in October.”

Other intersting stats from the release include: