February 2012 CMHC Data - Vancouver CMA

Here are mohican/VHB's charts for housing starts, housing completions, and under construction 

The last few months have seen a continued dearth of completions and an increasing amount of starts and under construction volume. Starts will typically lead completions by about 12 months so we should expect to see increased completion volumes heading into the second quarters of 2012. Given that completions are still low compared to pre-recession levels I expect this to provide some constraints on new supply for the first half of 2012. Completions will likely be increasing through the remainder of 2012. 

Here is a breakdown of the new persons per bedroom start and completion, assuming 4 bedrooms per detached and 1.6 bedrooms per multi. The higher the number the more population growth there is per start/completion and this would tend to lead to higher unit absorption. In contrast a lower value would mean less absorption. As we can see we are currently trending closer to the lower bound. But also notice how violently these measures can move, a chilling indication of how vulnerable BC's economy is to a slowdown in housing construction activity and population growth.

Below we can see the marked increase in multi-unit construction compared to detached construction and its effect on the change in housing mix over the past decade.

As Vancouver grows, not surprisingly, the mix of housing is switching to multifamily units.