Builders broke ground on more homes than expected last month, led by a boom in British Columbia, home to this month’s Winter Olympics.

Housing starts jumped 5.8 per cent to a 15-month high of 186,300 units in January on a seasonally adjusted annual basis with both multiple and single starts posting gains, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp. said Monday.

Some of this month’s increase may stem from temporary factors, namely the Olympics, economists said.

“With part of the uptick in starts likely to be coming as a result of temporary factors, namely the surge in Olympic-related housing in B.C., we believe that this report overstates the true strength of the recovery in residential construction and expect to see a modest pull-back next month,” said Millan Mulraine, economics strategist at Toronto-Dominion Bank.

The latest increase comes after starts last year totalled 149,081 units, with activity picking up as the year progressed, the national housing agency said. Housing starts dropped as low as 118,500 last April before partially recovering. Economists figure Canadian housing starts should climb at about 175,000 units to keep pace with population growth.

British Columbia led last month’s gains. Urban starts soared 19.8 per cent in Canada’s westernmost province. They rose 7.3 per cent in Quebec, 2.3 per cent in Atlantic Canada, and 1.5 per cent in the Ontario. In the Prairie region, starts dropped 4.8 per cent.

Analysts polled by Bloomberg News had expected 180,000 starts in the month.

Urban multiple starts increased 5.7 per cent in January to 76,300 units while single urban starts climbed 3.3 per cent to 88,900 units.

“These increases are similar to the ones that occurred in December,” said Bob Dugan, CMHC’s chief economist.

Canada’s real estate market has seen blistering activity in recent months, sparking steep gains in home prices. The heads of the country’s six largest banks have expressed concern over a potential slide in house prices and said they want Ottawa to tighten rules on mortgages, The Globe and Mail reported Saturday.

Yet Finance Minister Jim Flaherty seems to have no near-term plans to tighten mortgage rules.

“Right now, there is no compelling evidence of a housing bubble in Canada,” he told reporters this weekend, though “we’re continuing to watch” how the market evolves.

With files from Bill Curry and Kevin Carmichael.