Vancouver home building permits issued in September were valued at a total of $454.9 million, a rise of 8.9 per cent compared with last September, according to Statistics Canada data released November 6.
However, this value dropped 5.1 per cent compared with August’s figure of $479.5 million, which was itself a steep drop from July’s high of $775.2 million.
Condo-apartment construction continued to lead the way, with more than $253 million of the city’s total residential permit value in September invested in multi-family buildings (a 12.1 per cent year-over-year rise). In contrast, $127 million of the permit value was spent on single-family homes in September and $43.5 million on townhomes.
Residential permits across the province were up 6.5 per cent year over year to $673 million, a 7.2 per cent decline from August.
In other provincial centres surveyed, Victoria also saw September’s building permit values rise 7 per cent year over year to $39.2 million, although this total was a fall of 5.1 per cent compared with August’s figures.
Abbotsford-Mission continued its strong construction year and saw the biggest rise in residential permit values in September, up 122 per cent over last September to $10.1 million. However, this was a 25.6 per cent decline compared with the previous month.
In Kelowna, the value of September’s building permits totalled $32.6 million, a rise of 33.9 per cent year over year and a provincial trend-bucking increase of 11.2 per cent compared with August 2015.
Across Canada, the total value of residential permits was $3.99 billion, a 2.3 per cent decrease over the month before. This was also an unusual decline of 5.4 per cent year over year, led by large decreases in Ontario, particularly in multi-family buildings in that province.
Nationwide, condo-apartment construction permits in September were worth $1.1 billion of the total dollar figure, as single-family home construction regained its strong lead, with $2.2 billion worth of permits issued.
To read the full Statistics Canada report and interactive charts, click here.
