B.C. housing starts picked up again in March. On a seasonally adjusted annualized basis, urban starts increased to 58,670 in March. This marks an increase of 32.3 per cent compared to the previous month and is well above the six-month average, which was around 47,800. Multi-family starts increased 38.5 per cent to a rate of 55,095, but this was balanced out by a 21.4-per-cent decline in single-family starts, which totalled 3,575. Nationally, housing starts declined 6.9 per cent with multi-family unit starts down 7.8 per cent, and single-family unit starts down 3.2 per cent.

Among B.C.’s seven large metro areas, five had higher starts in March. Vancouver still leads the way, with a 27.2-per-cent increase to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 41,720 starts. This was above last year’s monthly average of........

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