Vancouver home building permits issued in October were valued at a total of $479.6 million, a rise of 4.4 per cent compared with last October, according to Statistics Canada data released December 8.
This dollar value is also a 9.4 per cent increase compared with September 2015’s figure of $454.9 million, although nowhere close to July’s peak of $775.2 million.
Multi-family construction continued to drive the growth in October, with more than $278.2 million of Vancouver’s total residential permit value for the month spent on condo-apartment construction (an 11 per cent year-over-year rise). Some $140.5 million of October’s permit value in Vancouver was invested in single-family homes, and $76 million on townhomes. However, it was townhomes that saw the biggest year-over-year increase in permit values, up 93 per cent over last October.
Residential permits across the whole of BC were up 0.4 per cent year over year to total $722.9 million in value, a rise of 7.1 per cent over September.
In other provincial centres surveyed, the value of October’s building permits in Kelowna surged to total $44.6 million, a rise of 16.5 per cent year over year and an increase of 36.7 per cent compared with September 2015.
Abbotsford-Mission’s construction year has gone from strength to strength, as it saw by far the biggest rise in residential permit values in October, up 325 per cent over last October to $17.5 million, led by massive growth in townhomes. This was also a 72.7 per cent rise compared with the previous month.
However, Victoria saw October building permit values drop by 31 per cent year over year to $30.7 million, which was also a decline of 21.7 per cent compared with September’s figures.
Across Canada, the total value of residential permits was $4.76 billion, a 19.7 per cent increase over the month before and a rise of 10 per cent year over year, reversing September’s annual and monthly declines. The increase was led by significant growth in Alberta, particularly in Calgary.
Nationwide, the big story was in condo-apartment construction permits, which rose 48.4 per cent year over year to comprise $2.07 billion of the total dollar figure. The sector usurped single-family home construction’s historical strong lead, with that sector seeing $2.05 billion worth of permits issued in October, down 9.6 per cent over last October.
To read the full Statistics Canada report and interactive charts, click here.
