Metro Vancouver new housing permits totalled less than $372 million in June, according to Statistics Canada figures released August 8.

The figure is a decline of 31.7 per cent from the previous June and a drop of nearly 42 per cent over May’s $588 million worth of permits issued, despite housing supply shortages exacerbating the region’s affordability problems.

Single-family homes saw the highest total value of permits issued, up nearly 22 per cent year over year to $159 million. But multi-family building permits fell nearly 53 per cent since last June, to just shy of $121 million, and there were no duplex permits issued.

Across BC as a whole, the value of residential building permits was $693 million in June, a drop of nearly 21 per cent from the $867 million in May, and a eight per cent decline year over year.

In the three other BC metropolitan centres surveyed, Victoria, Kelowna and Abbotsford-Mission all saw year-over-year rises in new home permit values, although the totals were not high enough to prevent Vancouver’s decline from dragging down BC’s overall figures. Building permits totalled $80.6 million in Victoria, up 82 per cent over the previous June. Kelowna saw a year-over-year rise of nearly 40 per cent to $32.2 million, although this was a steep drop of 54.3 per cent compared with May. And Abbotsford-Mission’s new housing permits were up nearly 20 per cent year over year to $12.4 million.

Across Canada, the value of residential building permits was down 9.7 per cent year over year to $4.17 billion, a monthly drop of 2.2 per cent. As in Vancouver, a sudden decline in the value of multi-family dwelling permits was partially offset by a rise in single-family dwelling permits.

For a full breakdown of all provinces and regions surveyed, view Statistics Canada’s interactive charts here.