With two months remaining in 2013, Red Deer’s residential construction sector has surpassed its performance for all of last year.
Statistics provided by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. indicate that there were 609 housing starts in the city as of Oct. 31.
That was 22 per cent ahead of the 499 starts to the same point in 2012, and more than the 568 for all of 2012.
This year’s starts included 323 on single-detached homes and 286 on units in multi-family projects, as compared with 282 and 217 respectfully for the January-to-October period of 2012.
In October alone there were 29 starts on single-detached homes, up from 20 for the same month last year.
But multi-family starts for October slipped to 14 this year, as compared with 32 in 2012.
Among Alberta’s seven largest urban centres, Red Deer was one of three to show a year-over-year increase in cumulative housing starts to the end of October, with the others being Edmonton and the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo.
Grande Prairie was unchanged from last year, while Calgary, Lethbridge and Medicine Hat were down.