(file photo/Vernon Matters Staff)

By Liam Verster

Housing Construction

Local housing construction soared in February

Mar 18, 2025 | 3:06 PM

Greater Vernon saw a surge in housing construction in the second month of 2025.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said there were 34 housing projects started locally in February.

That was up from the five projects starts in January, as well as the four recorded in February of 2024.

The projects started in Greater Vernon during the latest reporting month involved 28 apartments and eight single family homes.

In the first two months of 2025, Greater Vernon recorded 41 housing project starts. That was up from the 16 new housing starts in the same period of 2024.

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Meanwhile, CMHC reported a total of 113 housing starts in Kelowna in the latest reporting month, and though the report did not provide the previous year’s data, it did say that total was down on an annual basis.

The report said there were 96 apartment, 11 single family homes, and two semi detached house starts in February, all of which were down from the same month in 2024. There were also four row house starts, as there were the previous February.

However, there had been 473 housing project starts in the first two months of 2025, which was up when compared to Kelowna’s figures the previous year.

Additionally, CMHC said the provincial and national housing start totals declined on an annual basis.

B.C. recorded 2,380 housing starts in February, which was down from the 3,616 starts the same month the year before.

Canada as a whole saw 14,459 housing project starts in the most recent reporting month, also marking a decline from the 17,454 starts in February of 2024.

The breakdown of housing starts by province were as followed in the latest report:

Data was not provided for the three territories.