New housing units are popping up across Canada, but fewer families are building houses.

According to a report released Monday from Statistics Canada, spending on new housing construction totalled $3.9 billion in December, up 4.8 per cent from a year before.

This increase is lead mainly by apartment and condominium developments, up 23.9 per cent to $1.4 billion last year.

Spending on townhouses also went up 3.4 per cent to $348 million.

At the same time, investment in family houses fell 3.4 per cent year over year to $2.0 billion. Spending on semi-detached housing construction declined over 16 per cent.

At the provincial level, Ontario, British Columbia and Quebec reported the biggest increases.

In British Columbia, investment in new housing construction went up more than 12 per cent from the same month a year ago to $713 million in December.

According to StatCan, this was mainly because of higher spending on apartment and apartment-condominium buildings, family houses and row houses.

In contrast, Alberta had the largest decline in new housing.