Halifax Market Commentary

Halifax Bucks the National Trend: New-Home Prices Climb While the Country Cools

Statistics Canada’s latest figures show new single-detached prices in Halifax rising steadily through 2025, even as new-home starts fell and inventory built up across much of the country.

Where New-Home Prices Landed

The fourth-quarter 2025 averages tell a clear story of a market led by detached product. The spread between a new single-detached home and a new condominium apartment now sits at roughly $151,500 — a meaningful premium for ground-oriented housing.

The Year in Motion

Single-detached pricing climbed in three of four quarters to finish the year at its high. Semi-detached and condominium pricing, by contrast, traced a flat line — ending 2025 within a percentage point of where they began.

Average list prices, Halifax CMA. Source: Statistics Canada, New Housing Market Report, 2025.

A Region Moving Against the Grain

The national picture in 2025 was one of cooling: for-sale housing starts fell 10% year over year, and the inventory of completed, unsold units rose 35%. Atlantic Canada told a different story. Regional new-home starts climbed 10%, with every census metropolitan area posting gains except Moncton (down 8%). Single-detached homes accounted for two-thirds of all new for-sale starts in the region.

For Halifax buyers, the entry point into new single-detached construction spans a wide band — from $383,000 to $655,000 — the broadest entry-level range in Atlantic Canada, reflecting a more varied pipeline of new product than neighbouring markets.

What It Means for Halifax

The divergence is the headline. While much of the country saw new-home demand soften, Halifax’s detached market continued to firm. That resilience speaks to the structural demand story that has defined this market for several years now — steady in-migration, a constrained supply of ground-oriented housing, and a buyer base that continues to value detached living.

The flat trajectory in new condominium and semi-detached pricing is equally telling: it points to a market where attached and multi-unit product is keeping closer pace with supply, even as detached homes command a widening premium. For sellers of existing detached homes, that new-construction premium is a useful reference point. For buyers, the rising inventory of unsold new units is the first signal in some time that a little more choice may be returning to the market.