By Dori Modney (@Dori_Modney on Twitter) with files from The Canadian Press

Lethbridge New Home Starts Down for Second Month in a Row

Jul 11, 2016 | 9:30 AM

LETHRBIDGE:  After holding steady for a couple months, new home starts in the city have now dropped for the second month in a row.

For the month of June , there were a combined 41 single and multi homes starts, compared to 139 during the same month last year.  Multi home starts posted the largest decline as there were only eight starts last month,compared to 74 last June.

Year-to-date numbers also show a decline. During the first half of last year, there had been 455 new home starts, while the first six months of this year has seen 307 single and multi family home starts.

The new home picture across the province has shown Calgary and Edmonton consistently posting significant drops, with other centres picking up the slack.  However, those other centres are now posting their own dropping numbers.

For the first six months of 2016, the only centre to post increase new home starts has been Grande Prairie, primarily due to an increase in multi home starts. Total provincial new home starts are down by more than 7,800 units so far this year.

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Nationwide, the numbers look better, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation says the annual pace of housing starts picked up in June.

CMHC’s seasonally adjusted annual rate was 218,333 units in June, up from 186,709 in May.

A major source of growth last month was multiple-unit projects in urban areas, which increased by 26.7 per cent to an annualized rate of 142,819 units.

Single-detached urban starts increased by 1.7 per cent to 59,883 and urban starts of both categories increased by 18.1 per cent in the month to 202,702 units.