CALGARY - Housing starts in the Calgary region continued their year-long precipitous drop compared to last year’s lofty levels, according to April data released today by Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Last month in the Calgary census metropolitan area, single-detached starts amounted to only 234 units, down by 30.4 per cent from the 336 units recorded in April 2008.

Multiple-family starts plunged by 88.6 per cent to only 87 units in April compared with 760 starts a year ago.

And total housing starts in the Calgary region were off by 70.7 per cent to only 321 units in April, compared with 1,096 in April 2008.

A bright spot was that in the single-detached market starts increased by nearly 37 per cent in April from March’s 171 units. However, the multi-family sector dropped by nearly 31 per cent on a monthly basis from 126 units in March.

“April housing starts (for single-detached homes) are an improvement from this March, which was not the case last year,” said Lai Sing Louie, senior market analyst in Calgary for the CMHC. “New home sales are starting to improve with lower mortgage rates and consumers taking advantage of builder incentives.”

However, after four months of production this year, single-detached starts have reached 793 units, down 43.5 per cent from the same period in 2008 when they totalled 1,403 units.

Louie said that a year ago there were some large apartment condominium projects accounting for most of the starts.

Year-to-date in the multi-family sector, there have been 274 starts, down 93.7 per cent from the same period in 2008 when they were at 4,349 starts.

Overall in the Calgary region, starts are off by 81.4 per cent this year from year-ago levels, falling from 5,752 units to 1,067 units.

Housing starts across Alberta’s seven largest centres totalled 794 units in April, down 61 per cent from the 2,034 units started a year ago.

Nationally, Canadian housing starts fell a worse-than expected 19.9 per cent in April to 117,400 annualized units, the slowest pace of residential construction activity since 1996.

Economist Robert Kavcic with BMO Capital Markets said single-unit starts, at 42,100 annualized units, is now at the lowest level since 1995 and is quickly closing in on early-1980s levels.

“Canadian housing starts have now spent six months below the rate of household formation, but that has only begun to chip away at the prior six years of overbuilding,” he said.

Ian Pollick, economics strategist with TD Securities, said the economic fundamentals continue to point to further weakness in Canadian housing activity.

“In addition, it looks as though the housing sector is likely to remain a drag on Canadian economic activity in Q2,” he said. “Though, we cannot ignore the fact that the reduction in starts is likely to keep inventories contained, which is a good thing during a recession.”