Halifax Economic Dashboard

Halifax Economic Snapshot

(Updated: January 2025)

Home Prices

The average selling price for a home in Halifax was $575,907 in December, down from $576,484 in November. The December 2024 figure is a 10.3% increase from December 2023. The sales-to-new-listings ratio in December jumped up to 122.9. This jump into a "sellers' market" is typical for a December housing market in Halifax and is less pronounced than previous years.

Gross Domestic Product

The latest estimates from the Conference Board of Canada show that Halifax's real GDP grew by 2.3% in 2023. It is expected to grow by 1.7% in 2024 and by an average of 2.2% per year between 2025 and 2028. Comparatively, in 2023 real GDP growth was 1.2% and 1.3% for Canada and Nova Scotia, respectively. Halifax accounted for 93.9% of Nova Scotia's net real GDP growth in 2023.

Retail Sales

Total retail sales in Nova Scotia decreased 2.6% in September 2024 compared to a year ago. Across industries, the largest annual increase in retail sales was recorded for general merchandise retailers (+3.0%), whereas the largest annual decline was sporting goods, hobby, musical instrument, book, and miscellaneous retailers (-9.6%). 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.

Rental Real Estate

Average monthly rent in Halifax, across all apartment types, increased by 6.4% from $1,538 in 2023 to $1,636 in 2024. The apartment vacancy rate increased to 2.1% in 2024, after being stuck at its historic low of 1.0% for three years in a row. Within Halifax, the fastest rent increases were seen in the largest units, as 3+ bedroom units saw a 7.9% increase over 2023. These figures are derived from a survey of Halifax renters conducted in October 2024. They represent an average of the rents current residents were paying at the time the survey was taken.
(Note that due to API issues, the data in the dashboard below will not reflect these updated statistics. We expect Statistics Canada will resolve these issues in the new year.)

Labour Market

The unemployment rate in Halifax decreased to 4.6% in December 2024, down 0.1 percentage points from November 2024 but up 0.3 points from December 2023. Comparatively, the December 2024 rates for Canada and Nova Scotia were 6.7% and 6.2%, respectively.

The overall number of jobs in Halifax decreased by 1,600 positions (-0.6%) between November and December 2024, but increased by 6,400 positions (+2.4%) compared to a year ago. Since December 2023, public administration added the most jobs (4,500), while wholesale and retail trade lost the most jobs (-5,200).

Inflation

Inflation has levelled off in recent months. Halifax saw an annualized inflation rate of 2.1% in November 2024, 0.3 percentage points higher than the previous month but 1.0 percentage points lower than a year ago. Comparatively, November 2024 saw the national inflation rate fall to 2.1%, down 1.2 percentage points compared to a year ago, while the Nova Scotia rate fell to 1.7%, down by 0.9 percentage points. As compared to October, the national and provincial inflation rates were down by 0.1 and up 0.2 percentage points, respectively.

Commercial Real Estate

The vacancy rate for office space in Halifax decreased 0.1 percentage points to 12.8% between Q2 and Q3 2024, and was 0.4 percentage points lower than a year ago. Overall average asking rent for office space decreased by only $0.01 psf since the previous quarter. As for industrial space, the overall vacancy rate was 5.7%, down by 0.4 percentage points since Q2 2024, but 0.8 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.