Statistics // 'Housing Starts, July 2024' and 'Building Construction, June 2024'

The following statistics were released from the Economics and Statistics Division on August 16 and 19, 2024, respectively.

For full details from ‘Housing Starts, July 2024,’ please click here.

For full details from ‘Building Construction, June 2024,’ please click here.

Monthly (July 2024 vs June 2024, seasonally adjusted annualized rate)

Nova Scotia’s housing starts (seasonally adjusted annualized rate) totalled 6,593 units in July 2024
- This was a 45.5% decrease from the previous month’s revised value of 12,089 (which was the 4th fastest pace of monthly housing starts in records dating back to 1990)
Housing starts in Halifax slowed to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 3,681 units in July 2024, down 59.2% from June 2024
Outside of Halifax, housing starts decreased to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 2,912 units in July 2024, down 5.0% from June 2024

Year-over-year (July 2024 vs July 2023, seasonally adjusted annualized rate)

Nova Scotia’s housing starts were up 6.6% compared with July 2023
Halifax housing starts were 14.4% above their level from July 2023
Housing starts outside the city were down 1.8% year-over-year
With completions outpacing starts, the stock of units under construction declined to 10,970 units in Halifax, though this was still up 45.3% from units under construction in the the same month last year (7,548)

Monthly (June 2024 vs May 2024, seasonally adjusted)

Investment in Nova Scotia building construction rose 0.3% in June 2024 to $570.3 million
Halifax monthly building construction fell 5.0% to $285.8 million and outside of Halifax building construction was up 6.3% to $284.4 million
Nationally, investment in building construction increased 2.8% with gains in all 10 provinces
- The largest gain was in New Brunswick, with Nova Scotia reporting the smallest gain

Year-to-date (January-June 2024 vs January-June 2023)

Compared to January-June 2023, building construction investment was up 21.9% in Nova Scotia
Halifax construction activity was up 29.1% and outside of Halifax construction activity was up 14.8%

Nova Scotia’s non-residential construction was up 37.1% compared to January-June 2023
Halifax’s non-residential construction rose 21.7% while outside of Halifax, non-residential construction was up 65.1%
Seven provinces reported increases, with the largest increase in Nova Scotia

Trends

Building construction has trended up over recent years, particularly from rising residential investment
Non-residential investment has been on a more gradual increasing trend, primarily from investments in Halifax
Commercial construction has shown some limited growth in recent months
Government/institutional construction has been increasing since mid-2022
Industrial investment has recently plateaued