BC reported another record month for investment in new home construction in August, with the $1.078 billion investment the first time the province has spent more than $1 billion in a month, according to Statistics Canada data released October 21.
This investment was up 32.7 per cent compared with the previous August, and a rise of 10.5 per cent since July.
Condo-apartment construction made up more than half of the $1 billion expenditure, at just shy of $530 million, a leap of 54.5 per cent year over year and an increase of 15 per cent over July’s figures.
Single-family homes followed with nearly $426 million invested, which was a rise of 13.5 per cent since last year and 7.3 per cent month over month.
Row homes, townhouses and other attached properties saw a 36.5 per cent leapt in expenditure since last August, now at $92.8 million, which was a month-over-month rise of 5.5 per cent.
Duplexes continued to lag behind, with their $30.6 million investment in August a drop of 0.3 per cent from the previous month, although this was up 12.5 per cent over the previous year.
Even BC’s billion-dollar expenditure could not come close to that of Ontario, which spent double that amount, breaching the $2 billion mark for the first time. However, BC’s annual growth was higher than Ontario’s 18.4 per cent.
Investment in new housing construction fell in nine of Canada’s 14 provinces and territories, with year-over-year declines in Newfoundland and Labrador (which are combined), PEI, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and Nunavut.
Across the country as a whole, new home building investment rose 2.4 per cent year over year to $4.654 billion, 3.3 per cent up over July.
Unlike in BC, the nationwide investment was focused more on detached houses, which totalled $2.3 billion across Canada, although this was a drop of 2.1 per cent over last August. This was followed by multi-family construction, which narrowed the expenditure gap, rising 9.2 per cent year over year to $1.67 billion. REW.CA/news.