Canada's national housing agency is widening its support for factory-built housing as policymakers and market participants look for ways to accelerate delivery amid a chronic housing supply shortfall.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has said the country needs to roughly double housing starts over the next decade to restore affordability. The agency argues that meeting that goal will require significant productivity gains in residential construction and greater use of methods that can deliver homes faster and at scale.

In that context, CMHC has announced an expansion of its mortgage loan insurance offering to include more options for prefabricated and modular homes, targeting both individual homebuyers and multi-unit developers.