Halifax Economic Dashboard

Halifax Economic Snapshot

(Updated: April 2024)

Home Prices

The average selling price for a home in Halifax was $564,562 in March, up from $561,454 in February. The March 2024 figure is a 4.1% increase over March 2023. The sales-to-new-listings ratio in March rose to 80.4, keeping Halifax in a “seller’s market” situation.

Gross Domestic Product

The latest estimates from the Conference Board of Canada show that Halifax's real GDP grew by 1.4% in 2023. It is expected to grow by 0.8% in 2024 and by an average of 2.5% per year between 2025 and 2028. Comparatively, in 2023 real GDP growth was 1.0% and 0.7% for Canada and Nova Scotia, respectively. Halifax accounted for 57.7% of Nova Scotia's 2023 real GDP.

Inflation

Inflation increased slightly in March, despite falling over the longer term. Halifax saw an annualized inflation rate of 3.6% in March 2024, 0.2 percentage points higher than the previous month but 1.2 percentage points lower than a year ago. Comparatively, March 2024 saw the national inflation rate rise to 2.9%, down 1.4 percentage points compared to a year ago, while the Nova Scotia increased rose to 3.3%, down by 1.3 percentage points. As compared to February, the national and provincial inflation rates were up by 0.1 percentage points and 0.5 percentage points, respectively.

Rental Real Estate

Average monthly rent in Halifax, across all apartment types, increased by 13.3% from $1,347 in 2022 to $1,532 in 2023. The apartment vacancy rate remained stable near its historic low, at 1.0% for the third year in a row. Within Halifax, the largest rent increase was in Bedford/Sackville (+$303). These figures are derived from a survey of Halifax renters conducted in October 2023. They represent an average of the rents current residents were paying at the time the survey was taken.

Labour Market

The unemployment rate in Halifax increased to 5.5% in March 2024, up 0.6 points from the previous month and 0.7 points from March 2023. Comparatively, the March 2024 rates for Canada and Nova Scotia were 6.4% and 7.0%, respectively.

The overall number of jobs in Halifax increased by 800 positions (+0.3%) between February and March 2024, and increased by 16,300 positions (+6.3%) compared to a year ago. Since March 2023, the health care and social assistance industry added the most jobs (3,600), while forestry, fishing, mining, quarrying, oil and gas lost the most jobs (-1,600).

Retail Sales

Total retail sales in Nova Scotia increased 6.8% in February 2024 compared to a year ago. Across industries, the largest annual increase in retail sales was recorded for motor vehicles and parts dealers (+18.5%), whereas the largest annual decline was recorded for building material and garden equipment dealers (-18.5%). These figures reflect the the total dollar value of transactions, which are affected by both the volume of goods sold and the changes in their prices.

Commercial Real Estate

The vacancy rate for office space in Halifax declined 0.3 percentage points to 12.4% between Q4 2023 and Q1 2024, and was 1.4 percentage points lower than a year ago. Overall average asking rent for office space increased by $0.28 psf since the previous quarter. As for industrial space, the overall vacancy rate was 4.9%, down 0.4 percentage points since Q4 2023, but 1.3 percentage points higher than a year ago. Average gross rent for industrial space increased $0.08 psf since the previous quarter.

You can explore the dashboard below for figures in specific parts of the city.