January numbers down 69 per cent over last year
New housing construction in Halifax slumped sharply in January, says Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.
But take heart: other figures released Wednesday point to a sharp uptick in construction activity in Halifax Regional Municipality later this year as the navy shipbuilding contract gathers steam.
New residential construction fell by 69 per cent in January from the same month a year ago, according to data released Wednesday by the housing corporation. The big drop came in multi-unit starts — just 18 last month compared with 203 during the same month in 2011.
But Matthew Gilmore, senior market analyst with the housing corp.’s Atlantic Business Centre, said apartment starts can fluctuate a lot month to month.
December 2011, he said, was a prime example. That month, multi-unit housing starts in Halifax hit an unusually strong 383 units, making the January decline that much starker.
“I wouldn’t read anything into the low number for January,” Gilmore said. “We’re expecting a lot of apartments to start construction later in 2012.”
By then, the Halifax shipyard’s $25-billion navy contract should be well underway. But he said that the expected spurt in housing starts won’t be due to a single factor.
“It’s a positive reflection of economic growth.”
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