Dwelling Types and Households in the City

New Housing Construction

Housing markets are generally very cyclical, and figures for housing completions in the City of Vancouver between 1976 and 2008 illustrate this. Completions of single family and row house have been relatively steady with an average of about 1,000 units per year. Before the 1990s apartments average around 2,000 completions per year. Since the 1990s completions of apartments have increased to over 3,000 units per year.

City of Vancouver Housing Completions: 1976 to 2009

Source: Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC)

Note: The housing types here are recorded by CMHC, and will not exactly match the descriptions of dwelling types used by Statistics Canada in census data.

Household Size: Average Number of People per Dwelling

A number of factors affect the rate of population growth, and the demand for dwellings that the rising population creates.

After a significant decline through the 1970s, the average number of people per dwelling has remained relatively static from the 1980s to today. The decline followed from a range of demographic and social factors, such as fewer children living at home, more single parent and single people households, and also reflects the increase in the proportion of apartments in the city.

Projections of population and housing demand, based on recent trends of household formation, suggest that average household size will continue to show modest decreases out to 2041. This would mean that we will need more new housing beyond what the population growth alone would suggest.

City of Vancouver: Average Number of People per Private Household

Average number of people per household in Vancouver
Year	Total Private Households	Total population	Population in private households	Average household size
1971	153,240	426,260	408,790	2.67
1976	160,230	410,188	391,610	2.44
1981	173,040	414,280	397,560	2.3
1986	185,790	431,146	420,455	2.26
1991	199,540	471,844	460,460	2.31
1996	218,540	514,008	506,450	2.32
2001	236,100	545,671	538,570	2.28
2006	253,210	578,041	569,135	2.25

Source: Statistics Canada, Census Data

[top]