Last month's housing starts up over "05

November's frightful bouts of rain and snow didn't deter homebuilders from starting construction on a higher number of housing units than the same month a year ago, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. reports.

CMHC said Friday that there were 1,405 new-housing starts across Greater Vancouver in November, a five-per-cent increase from the same month in 2005, with most of those -- 1,002 units -- in the multi-family class.

Single-family-home starts declined six per cent to 403, CMHC said.

"The rally was strong enough to surpass the negative impact of unusually wintery weather last month," Andy Ni, a CMHC market analyst said in a news release.

And the higher numbers follow three months of lower building activity.

Peter Simpson, CEO of the Greater Vancouver Homebuilders' Association, said for the year to date, housing starts are slightly ahead of 2005 -- 17,398 this year compared with 17,283 last year.

"With one month left to count ... [the results] fall in line with our earlier belief that we wouldn't see any sharp increases this year nor dramatic drops," Simpson added.

Provincewide, Canada Mortgage and Housing reported that November urban housing starts dipped three per cent to 2,443, with most of the decline occurring in single-family-home construction.

B.C.'s urban centres saw 889 single-family starts in November, 19 per cent below the same month a year ago. Multi-family starts, meanwhile, were 10 per cent higher than November 2005 at 1,554 units.

Nationally, Canada's housing market is holding up better than in the U.S. where a slowdown is taking place.

Across Canada, the annual pace of new-home construction edged up in November to 225,000 units from 223,000 units in October.

However, the increase was in multi-family units and limited to the Prairie and Atlantic regions, Canada Mortgage and Housing reported.

"The growth in multiple unit construction in 2006 was underpinned by low mortgage rates, a steady employment picture and by the lower average price of multiples relative to single detached homes," Bob Dugan, Canada Mortgage and Housing's chief economist said.

However, Dugan added that a slight dip in national employment and economic-growth forecasts will cause housing starts to ease.

Ted Carmichael, economist at J.P. Morgan, said Canadian mortgage rates have moderated recently, reflecting the Bank of Canada's decision to keep its trend-setting rate steady at 4.25 per cent.

The posted five-year mortgage rate is 6.55 per cent, down from 6.6 at mid-November

(prepared by Derrick Penner/Vancouver Sun)