Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Monday the number of seasonally adjusted housing starts were up 5.9 per cent from November, to 174,500 units. Most economists had expected an increase of between 160,000 and 165,000 units in December, following an upwardly revised 164,800 starts the previous month.

According to CMHC data, urban starts were up 6.6 per cent to 157,100 units in December, CMHC said in its report. Multiple-unit starts totalled 77,700 during the month, up from 72,800 units in November, while single-unit starts totalled 79,400, up 6.4 per cent from the previous month.

Urban construction was up 17.8 per cent in Quebec, 15 per cent in Atlantic Canada, 8.7 per cent in British Columbia and 2.9 per cent in Ontario, the report said. In the Prairies, urban starts declined 3.8 per cent.

Rural starts were unchanged at 17,400 units.

The Bank of Canada may shed further light on whether that strength has pushed Canada into a housing bubble when one of the governor’s advisers talks about the real estate sector in a speech Monday afternoon in Edmonton.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada said Monday the value of building permits fell in November by 4.6 per cent from the previous month to $5.9 billion. Still, that was 23.1 per cent higher than November 2008 and 62.8 per cent higher than February 2009. The decline was due to a drop in the non-residential market, which offset increases in the residential real estate market.