Investors have shaken off high interest rate concerns and begun issuing construction awards to contractors in the province.
StatsCan’s latest report on what they call investment in new construction is from March and it showed an increase of seven per cent to $140 million for non-residential work when compared to February. When you add in the residential side, total permit values were approaching $400 million.
The growth in non-residential construction investment led the country in March and the aggregate represented the third highest increase nationally. On the residential side, we joined the other Prairie provinces as the only ones where investment in residential building actually declined.
One of the tidbits this report identified, though, is a renewed emphasis on single family home construction across the country. This segment had been dominated by builders focused on multi-family complexes as concerns over a housing shortage were the order of the day.
But now builders have expanded their inventory development with the anticipation that interest rates will begin to fall later this year bringing buyers back to the market.
