Housing starts across Canada dipped significantly in January, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

The agency says there were 9,904 actual starts last month, compared with 13,038 in January 2012.

Extrapolating that figure over 12 months and smoothing out monthly variations produces a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 160,577 starts in January, down from 197,118 in December.

The story was much the same in Victoria.

Last month, there were 26 single-family homes started, down slightly from the 31 started in January 2012. There were 66 multiple starts last month, an improvement over the 51 started in the same month the year previous.

Construction crews were again busy in Langford as that municipality accounted for 14 of the 26 new single-family homes last month and 15 of the multiples.

Saanich boasted most of the multiple-family construction with 42 units started last month.

“January’s housing starts were below trend due to a pull-back from June to November 2012’s uptick in multiple-family construction,” said Etienne Pinel, senior market analyst.

Across Canada, urban starts decreased by 22.3 per cent in January to 138,134 units on the seasonally adjusted annual basis.

Single urban starts fell by 11.2 per cent to 59,318 units, and multiple urban starts decreased by 28.9 per cent to 78,816 units. On the adjusted annual basis, rates of starts were down 43.9 per cent in Ontario and 29.6 per cent in Quebec, while they were 59.4 per cent higher in Atlantic Canada and 7.7 per cent higher in B.C.

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