Atlantic Canada seeing increase in apartment construction, home builds decreasing or staying even

HALIFAX, N.S. — While construction of single-detached homes in the Halifax region, and the province on the whole, fell off a touch this September over last, business is booming in the construction of multi-unit buildings.

New data from Statistics Canada, culled by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, shows of increase of almost 2,200 per cent in year-over-year starts for apartment buildings, condos and other multiple-unit dwellings in Nova Scotia’s capital city.

For the province, the figure is significantly lower but still an eye-catching 416 per cent increase over 2022.

Provincially, new single-detached homes are down 32 per cent and 22 per cent in the Halifax Regional Municipality.

Newfoundland and Labrador and its provincial capital are experiencing similar growth. Multi-unit builds are up 238 per cent over last fall across the province and 400 per cent in the St. John’s region. Unlike N.S. and Halifax, however, Canada’s most easterly province did see some incremental growth in new single-detached homes.

Over on Prince Edward Island, while the number of new single-detached and multi-unit construction is in line with the population, there’s growth in the construction of both home types.

In New Brunswick, where new single-detached was down 32 per cent compared to last September, and all other residential construction was up 38 per cent, two of its three major cities felt growth differently.

Moncton saw both types of construction drop slightly from 2022, whereas Fredericton saw a 268 per cent jump in multi-unit builds. Saint John’s data remained relatively unchanged from one year to the next.