Windsor, Ont., housing starts to decline regardless of looming trade war, report suggests
Fewer condos, international students are 2 reasons, according to new CMHC report
No matter the outcome regarding ongoing U.S. tariff uncertainty — housing starts in Windsor, Ont., are forecasted to decline in 2025 compared to last year, according to a new housing market outlook by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
Much like what's been tracked across the rest of the province for this year, the southwestern Ontario border city's starts are expected to drop due in large part to fewer condominium developments being built.
However, CMHC economist Anthony Passarelli says Windsor hasn't been as reliant on apartment builds as some other more metropolitan cities.
"It's a little bit different because the condominium apartment sector hasn't been as big of an influence necessarily as in other markets," he said.
"But last year you had a sort of unusually high number of them."
Passarelli says the dip was inevitable because there weren't many new builds in the pipeline — and the "unusually high" year for condos in 2024.
Calling the city an "outlier," Windsor was one of only a few municipalities to hit their government building targets, he added.
Now, there isn't much on the books to start off 2025.
"You're still likely going to see some offset with more of the ground oriented homes being built ... that's single detached and townhomes."
When comparing January 2024 numbers against January 2025, Windsor saw a 79 per cent decrease in housing builds for the same month, according to another CMHC document released earlier this week. During the same 30 day period, Ontario showed a 29 per cent dip. Across Canada, the country was on the positive side with a total of nearly 16,000 new homes going up.
The report also details how home sales are expected to increase as consumer confidence improves.
But that too is speculative, according to Passarelli, who says it's very much dependent on the possibility of a trade war and heightened economic uncertainty because of the region's large automotive footprint.
Passarelli says CMHC plans to revisit their forecast halfway through the year to see how things play out across the region, country and internationally.
"Windsor is one of the tougher ones to put a forecast out because … the percentage of GDP that goes toward exports to the U.S. — this is among the top in the country."
According to Passarelli, they've built in a little more pessimism into their forecast when compared to previous ones.
"There's a lot of people that will likely be sort of sitting on the sidelines waiting to see how things play out with their employment … and are not going to make a big home buying decision or a moving decision right during this time. Same thing with the housing starts as well."
Government caps on international students played a role on Windsor's housing market in 2024, and are expected to do the same this year by balancing out rentals with even more restrictions on temporary residents.
"There's going to be even less demand from rental demand from that group," he said. "Because of that, we expect the vacancies to rise a bit again in Windsor this year."
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