Canadian municipalities issued $5 billion worth of building permits for residential properties in May, down 17.2% from the previous month.
The national decline follows a 26% jump in residential permits in April and was impacted by a 63% month-over-month decrease in permits in British Columbia.
The BC pull-back was perhaps inevitable as April’s spike in multi-family permits was driven by an incoming rise in developments costs for Metro Vancouver.
May’s figures reveal increases for the multi-family sector in seven provinces, including record highs for PEI ($34m) and New Brunswick ($30m).
For the single-family sector, there was a 1.8% increase nationally to $2.3 billion, led by a $47 million increase for Ontario.
In the non-residential sector, permits were down 5.7% to $3.3 billion in May.
This decrease was largely due to a high-value industrial permit being issued in the previous month.
The value of commercial permits was $1.9 billion, down 0.9% from April.
The value of overall permit issuance for all property sectors and provinces was $8.2 billion, down 13% from April’s record high of $9.5 billion.
Following a record $9.5 billion in April, the value of permits issued by Canadian municipalities declined 13.0% to $8.2 billion in May 2019. https://t.co/Espjzn20eK
