There were no single detached new home housing starts in Thompson during the third quarter of 2010, says Winnipeg-based Dianne Himbeault, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) senior market analyst for the Prairie and Territories Region.
There were three single detached new home housing starts in Thompson during the second quarter and none again in the first quarter. Housing starts for the period January to September are down 50 per cent - to three from six - for the same period last year.
The last single detached housing starts in Thompson prior to the second quarter were two in the third quarter of last year. The last quarter to record multiple family housing starts was two years ago during the fourth quarter of 2008 when four semis and four row (townhouse) units were started.
Single detached new home starts decreased 86 per cent last year, plummeting to six, CMHC reported in January, from 43 in 2008.
Multiple family housing starts went from eight in 2008 to none last year and none so far this year. Single family starts went from went from 24 in 2007 to 43 in 2008 - an increase of 79.2 per cent - and the highest number of housing starts in at least six years. Multiple family housing starts went from two in 2007 to eight in 2008, all started in the final quarter.
Combined there were 51 housing starts in Thompson in 2008, compared to 26 in 2007, representing a 96.2 per cent increase.
Gary Ceppetelli, the city's director of planning and community development, said earlier that typically there are no housing starts in Thompson during the first quarter of the year because of cold winter conditions and fourth quarter housing starts can also be infrequent. Most residential construction, he says, in Thompson usually takes place between April 1 and Sept. 30 - the second and third quarters of the year.
However, the most dramatic housing construction improvement in recent years here occurred in the fourth quarter of 2008. Statistics released by CMHC showed that 33 single detached homes were started in the final three months of the year, compared to nine for the same period in 2007. None were started in the fourth quarter of 2009, nor were there any multiple family housing starts. In 2008 there were eight, all started in the fourth quarter.
Unfortunately, while the fourth quarter of 2008 was good for local housing starts, it also happened to coincide with the beginning of the so-called Great Recession, which in many parts of the world proved to be the steepest and quickest economic decline since the Great Depression of 1929 to 1937. Within four months, housing starts in Thompson and elsewhere essentially fell off the map, and have yet to recover here and in many other places.
A June 2008 deal between Winn Can Properties Ltd. and the City of Thompson to build 110 new homes in the Burntwood South subdivision by the end of 2011 collapsed at the end of last year with no new homes being built. The developer has forfeited its $30,000 deposit.
Winn Can, comprised of a Winnipeg group of investors, working in conjunction with Schickedanz West, a division of Calgary-based Schickedanz Bros. Construction, was to build the first 30 homes by the end of last year.
