The number of Moose Jaw residential building permits issued between January 1st, 2009 and July 31st 2009 has dropped significantly compared to the same seven month period in 2008.
As of July 31st, 55 new dwelling construction permits worth $15.65 million were issued in the City of Moose Jaw.
In the same time period last year, were saw the city of Moose Jaw issue 89 such permits worth a total of $21.22 million.
This is a $5.57 million drop, which can be argued that the Canadian economy at the beginning of the year till now was in a slump, affecting business.
The situation in Regina and Saskatoon is similar to Moose Jaw noted Paul Caton, Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CHMC) senior market analyst. He explained that this trend is seen throughout Canada; however his organization does not collect figures for smaller centres such as Moose Jaw on a monthly basis.
Nonetheless, the data does not show well, as the drop is steep, almost a quarter of business was lost.
In Regina the number of residential construction starts dropped 53.2% for the first seven months of 2009 to 400 starts, and when compared to 2008 at 855 starts.
Saskatoon did not show much better, the number of residential construction dropped 71.8% for the first seven months of 2009 to 505 starts, compared to 2008 at 1,789 starts.
Although Moose Jaw suffered in the seven month period, it did better than Regina and Saskatoon only dropping 38.2%.
Jeff Markewich
Broker of Record with InfoMarket Group GMAC Real Estate
www.imgrealestate.ca
