June saw 25 new housing starts in the Sarnia area but this year's numbers are still lagging behind the 2018 pace.
Canada Housing and Mortgage Corporation (CMHC) Senior Market Analyst Andrew Scott said halfway through the year there have been 66 starts compared to 77 last year.
"As you know, 2017 and 2018 were very strong numbers and it's not necessarily fair to compare to those years all the time, but if you go back further this quarter was still actually quite robust," he said.
Scott said after a slow start to the year, we could potentially see a spike this summer and fall.
"Markets have started to adjust to some of the policy changes that we've seen over the last couple of years," he said. "Probably, more importantly, this year, we've seen mortgage rates start to moderate -- they had been climbing up into early this year and now we've seen them come down a little bit, so I think there's less worry that interest rates are going to go up now."
The numbers include Sarnia, St. Clair Township and Point Edward.
Nationally, CMHC said the trend in housing starts increased in June, primarily due to higher trending row and apartment starts in urban areas.
