Residential building permits down for third straight month

Canadian municipalities issued $5.0 billion worth of residential building permits in August, 4.4% lower than in July.

It was the third consecutive month of decreasing permit values Statistics Canada reports, with five of the six provinces recording declines doing so across both single-family and multi-family property sectors.

Overall, permits issued for single-family dwellings fell 5.2% month-over-month to $2.2 billion with Ontario and BC leading the decreases across 8 provinces.

For multi-family, the decrease was 3.8% to $2.7 billion. However, year-to-date permits were $3.5 billion more than the same period of 2017.

This year marks the first time on record that the multi-family dwellings have represented over 70% of the total units for six of eight months so far.

A total of $8.1 billion worth of building permits were issued in August, up 0.4% from July with non-residential accounting for $3.2 billion, up 8.8%.

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