The hot housing market in the London area continued in August with new home starts keeping pace with the surging resale market.

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. (CMHC) reports there were 408 housing starts in the London area in August, up from 358 in same month last year.

The total includes 135 single family homes, compared to 108 last August, and 273 units in multi-family buildings, up from 250.

So far this year, total housing starts are up 35 per cent, with 2,107 compared to 1,557 last year.

The resale market, which racked up record numbers in August, seems to be rubbing off on new home starts, says CMHC analyst Anthony Passarelli.

The average year-to-date price for a detached resale home stands at $295,078, while the average price for a condo is $201,393.

Passarelli said new home buyers are drifting toward the more affordable condos.

“The resale market for homes priced under $400,000 has tightened considerably this year, encouraging builders to start a higher number of homes in that price range,” said Passarelli.

The CMHC housing start numbers are confirmed by the city’s building permits statistics.

The city issued $767 million in building permits in the first seven months of 2016 compared to $437 million for the same period last year.

Permits for single homes totalled $199.8 million this year, compared to $130.5 million during the same period last year. The total for apartment buildings also rocketed, to $197.4 million from $52.2 million.

The Conference Board of Canada projects economic growth this year in London of 2.4 per cent, the same as last year and the same as forecast for 2017.

London has not had three consecutive years of growth in gross domestic product — the value of all goods and services produced here — of more than two per cent a year since the late 1990s.