new home construction 'pretty dead' in windsor area; blame trade war
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fear caused by canada’s trade war with the u.s. has sucked the life out of the area’s home construction industry, according to the latest data.
“it’s pretty dead,” windsor essex home builders’ association president brent klundert told the star.
there’s still a housing crisis, and interest rates are just over half of what they were a year ago, while housing prices are nearly three per cent lower.
but there’s not much home-building going on to address the need or take advantage of lower costs for purchasers.
last month saw only 64 home starts in the windsor area, which was barely more than half of the 117 starts seen in may 2024, according to the canada mortgage and housing corporation (cmhc).
“from where it was, when the interest rates were high, there was a slow trickle,” said klundert. “we’re not even seeing a slow trickle right now.”
he places the blame for the lack of construction on the climate of uncertainty created by u.s. president donald trump’s tariffs and trade policies. the same decision-making paralysis that has seeped into the business community is also affecting home buyers.
“the largest factor is the fear in the windsor market itself,” klundert said.
“there’s a lot of fear people have about how tariffs are affecting things, what’s happening with our auto industry in the area.
“typically, when there’s fear in the marketplace, people aren’t making, in a lot of cases, the biggest decision of their lives.”
‘there’s still interest in buying a new home.’ windsor home builders’ association president brent klundert shows countertop samples tuesday, june 24, 2025, at his firm bk cornerstone’s offices in tecumseh.
dave waddell
/
windsor star
through the end of may, the area is nearly 100 housing starts behind 2024 over that same period. there have been 617 starts so far this year compared to 702 in 2024.
“there was a lot of optimism heading into the spring with all the consecutive (bank of canada) interest rate cuts,” klundert said. “the tariffs put a dampening on that.”
klundert feels confident, however, that the local activity level will turn upward once there’s some clarity on the economic front.
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“there’s still interest in buying a new home,” he said.
“i’ve talked to others (builders) and people are saying the same thing — they’re just holding back right now. when there is certainty, there’ll be solid and sustained growth.”
klundert added tariffs haven’t yet impacted material costs too much to become a factor in decision-making.
locally, the city of windsor saw the most home starts last month, with 35, followed by lasalle with 10 and lakeshore and essex with six apiece.
“most home builders have inventory right now,” klundert said. “not many are doing spec projects.”
windsor and essex county association of realtors president julianna biondo said both the new build and resale home markets have been impacted by the economic uncertainty.
biondo said the resale market has gained some momentum in the past six weeks and there is still interest in new-build homes.
“i think this spring we saw a lot of hesitancy in the overall market but i see more buyers are now coming out,” biondo said. “june appears to be better than we’d normally expect.
“it’s kind of the delayed spring market push we usually experience.”
red tape, high development charges and rising material and labour costs are other factors adding to the industry’s challenges in adding to the local supply of new homes, biondo said.
“contractors and developers are almost kind of guessing at how the bottom line is going to turn out because of the uncertainty from day to day,” she said.
with affordability top of mind for most buyers, there remains a significant gap between last month’s average sales price of a resale home ($556,855) and the average price paid locally for a new-build home in may ($1,099,770).
however, biondo said there are still consumers willing to pay the premium price for a new home where they get exactly what they want and everything is new.
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“absolutely, people are still interested in new-build homes,” biondo said. “i have some clients who are only interested in building new.”
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