Highlights from ‘Building Permits, August 2024’

The following statistics were released from the Economics and Statistics Division on October 11, 2024. For full details from this dataset, please click here.

Monthly (seasonally adjusted, August 2024 vs July 2024)

  • Nova Scotia’s total building permits (residential and non-residential) dropped by 15.0% to $225.0 million
  • Halifax permits fell by 16.3% to $140.0 million
  • Permits outside the city declined 12.8% to $85.1 million

  • Nova Scotia’s non-residential building permits fell 42.8% to $50.0 million
    • Halifax permits declined 44.8% to $36.3 million
    • Outside the city, non-residential permit values declined 36.9% to $13.8 million
  • National non-residential building permit values fell 9.7% to $4.38 billion
    • Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island reported the steepest declines
Year-to-date (January-August 2024 vs January-August 2023)

  • In the first eight months of 2024, Nova Scotia’s residential building permits increased 24.5% compared to the same period in 2023
  • Halifax residential permits increased 31.7%
  • Outside the city residential permit values increased 14.7%

  • Nova Scotia’s non-residential building permits fell 1.7% in the first eight months of 2024 (compared with the same period in 2023)
  • Halifax permits increased 1.6%
  • Non-residential permits outside the city declined 7.1%
Trends
  • After trending down in late 2022 and early 2023, residential permit values started to rise again in Halifax in the middle of 2023
  • Nova Scotia’s non-residential building permit values started to rise in early 2023 before reaching a plateau through the end of the year
  • Non-residential permit values continue to increase in Halifax while declining in the rest of Nova Scotia, resulting in a continuation of the current plateau
  • After rising in early 2023, Halifax values for industrial building permits subsequently declined and have a slightly rising trend in recent months
  • Outside the city, permits have reached the peak and there is a decline in commercial and institutional/government permits