Methodology

Data sources and methodology

The primary sources of data for these report cards are the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)’s Starts and Completions Survey and data on new home sales, which are provided by Altus Group.

Starts data

CMHC reports monthly data on housing starts by dwelling type (single, semi-detached, row, apartment) and intended market (ownership, rental, condo, co-op, unknown) for Census Subdivisions (CSDs), which, for the purposes of this report, are municipalities. Data were obtained via the cmhc R package, which provides access to CMHC’s Housing Market Information Portal data. For the purposes of this report, the apartment dwelling type is split into rental apartments and condo apartments. All non-apartment dwelling types are grouped together as ground-oriented, regardless of their intended market.

Sales data

Data on sales are from Altus Group’s data on new home sales. Unlike absorbed units, which are reported by CMHC, a sale does not require a unit to be completed in order to count as a sale. This is a better leading indicator of sales activity than absorbed units. However, Altus Group’s data does not cover every Census Subdivision in the Census Metropolitan Areas (CMAs) covered in this report.

Estimates of employment

Estimates of person-years of employment associated with housing starts are calculated using Altus Group’s estimates of 3.8 person-years of employment per single detached home and and 1.5 person-years per apartment unit. The estimates include direct, indirect and induced employment.1

Scope

The report cards cover municipalities in the following CMAs:

  • Barrie
  • Brantford
  • Guelph
  • Hamilton
  • Kitchener-Waterloo-Cambridge
  • Oshawa
  • Peterborough
  • Toronto
  • St. Catharines - Niagara

Only municipalities with specific provincial housing supply targets are included in the report cards; however, CMA-level data — for example, a graph showing housing starts at the CMA level — include municipalities within those CMAs, even if they do not have specific provincial housing supply targets.

Grading

For each of our five categories, municipalities are initially given a grade of 75, equivalent to a B. For every two percentage points a municipality is above their 2021-24 average, they are awarded one extra grade point. Similarly, for every percentage point a municipality is below, they are docked one grade point. If the municipality is 12% above their typical performance, they would receive an 81 (75 + 12/6). If, however, they decreased by 24%, they would receive a 63 (75 - 24/2). The highest grade a municipality can receive in a category is 100, and the lowest grade they can receive is 25. Number grades are translated into letter grades, with 90-100 assessed as an A+, 80-90 assessed as an A, 70-80 assessed as a B, 60-70 assessed as a C, 50-60 assessed as a D, and under 50 assessed as an F. Each municipality is then awarded a final grade, which is based on the average of the grade for total starts and grade for total sales (e.g. a 73 on total starts and a 45 on total sales = 59 final grade).

  1. More details about the estimates of person-years of employment can be found in this 2022 Altus Group report.↩︎