Fraser Institute commentary argued Nova Scotia still underbuilt even as cranes filled the skyline
Home construction in Nova Scotia has accelerated, but not fast enough to put housing within reach for many families, according to a new commentary from the Fraser Institute.
Economists Austin Thompson and Alex Whalen said a brief slowdown in population growth has not closed the gap left by years of underbuilding.
“Homebuilding is booming in Nova Scotia, but housing remains unaffordable for many Nova Scotian families due to a simple mismatch: population growth raced ahead of homebuilding in recent years, pushing up prices and rents,” Thompson and Whalen wrote.
They hihglighted a sharp swing in demographic and construction trends. “In 2025, the province’s population grew by 0.3 per cent compared to an annual average of 2.6 per cent in the preceding three years when a significant shift in federal immigration and residency policies dramatically increased the number of immigrants to Canada,” they said.
Over the same year, “construction started on 8,732 new homes provincewide - a 31.1 per cent increase over 2024.”
Prices and rents still outpaced incomes. “In 2025, a typical home of any style (single-detached, townhome or apartment) cost $428,900 - 86.5 per cent higher than in 2019,” the commentary said.
“Over that same period, typical rents across the province jumped from $970 per month to $1,650. And many family incomes haven’t kept up.”
Policy shifts and the Halifax test
Thompson and Whalen credited the province and Halifax Regional Municipality with loosening zoning and cutting red tape.
“These policies allow builders to provide more homes, including more affordable options, for Nova Scotian families,” they said, arguing that flexible rules and relatively low fees are “precisely the right strategy to encourage homebuilding and ease affordability pressures.”
Halifax’s per-unit municipal charges of roughly $8,000 on a high-rise compared with more than $120,000 in Vancouver and Toronto, they wrote, while fees in St. John’s and Charlottetown are lower still.
Approval timelines and rent control in focus
Beyond fees, the authors highlighted process delays and provincial tax policy. “Homebuilders face delays of 9.8 months (on average) compared with 3.4 months in fast-growing Edmonton,” the commentary said, citing survey-based benchmarks rather than municipal data.
They also urged the Houston government to expand HST relief on new construction and to end rent control, arguing that current caps discouraged purpose-built rental building.
Meanwhile, national and regional analyses underlined how much more supply would still be required. CMHC’s latest housing supply framework estimated Nova Scotia would need to more than double annual housing starts from business-as-usual levels to restore pre-pandemic affordability by 2035.
Make sure to get all the latest news to your inbox on Canada’s mortgage and housing markets by signing up for our free daily newsletter here.
