Alberta homebuilders are having one of the busiest times in history.

Yesterday’s 24 showed that resale house prices have been on the rise in Calgary and Edmonton. The increases have been driven by strong population growth, low resale market inventory and a gap between household formations and new home construction.

Home builders have responded to this by ramping up housing starts in Alberta, which have averaged 46,052 units* over the first nine months of 2024. That puts Alberta on pace to record the highest level of starts in 2024 since 2007 (when they averaged 50,929 units through September).

The current pace of housing starts is looking a lot like the last Alberta housing boom of 2006/07. While there were some surges in 2014/15, we have to go back to December 2007 to find a hotter streak. 

Driven by multi-family construction projects, this is up by 37% from last year with September marking the 14th month in a row that house starts have been at or above 40,000 units.

Alberta’s residential construction activity stands out even more when compared to elsewhere in the country. Starts over the first nine months of the year in the rest of Canada are now down to their lowest point since the pandemic.

Building permits, another indicator of new home construction, have been showing similar trends. Relative to the first eight months of 2023, the number of residential permits issued in Alberta was up 36% while they declined 2.4% in the rest of Canada. 

All of this is in line with our latest October outlook released earlier this month. We expect housing starts to average close to current levels in 2025. Home construction is one of the key factors, along with rising energy production, pushing Alberta’s forecast for real GDP growth ahead of the national average.  

*All housing starts data in this report have been seasonally adjusted at an annual rate or SAAR.

Answer to the previous trivia question: The window tax (paid based on the number of windows in a house) was first imposed in England in 1696.

Today’s trivia question: Why is a “two-by-four” not two inches by four inches but actually 1 1/2 inches by 3 1/2 inches?