More Halifax residents are choosing to live in apartments instead of building a home, according to the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

The corporation says apartment buildings make up 70 per cent of new construction in Halifax this year. It's part of a larger construction trend in the country that, for years, was divided between 60 per cent single-detached homes and 40 percent multiple units.

Paul Pettipas, CEO of Nova Scotia Home Builders Association, says he's seen the decline of single-detached and row houses over time.

"In Halifax in the last 10 or 12 years, we had numbers of about 1,200," he said, referring to the number of new homes being built.

"Now we're tracking less than 500. It's substantial. Halifax is becoming a city of apartments."

He says it's resulting in layoffs for small builders dependent on single-detached homes, and many are now turning to home renovations to stay in business.

Pettipas says he attributes the shift to baby boomers seeking main floor homes and millennials — people born between 1990 and the 2000s — who aren't moving into home ownership at the same rate as their parents.

"It's an aging demographic, it's a group coming on stream, the millennials, that really aren't into home ownership maybe as my generation was."

Generation gap

Ed Leach, 65, says renting for 20 years allowed him to change apartments during career transitions while raising kids and caring for his elderly mother.

"It was a better solution for us," said Leach, who separated from his partner about a decade ago.

"At any moment in time we didn't know how much space we needed."

Leanne Langille, a millennial, says she hopes to buy a home eventually but can't afford it right now.

65-year-old Ed Leach has been renting an apartment for the last 20 years. He says it has allowed him to adapt better for family and during career transitions. (Allison Devereaux/CBC)

"It's not a super achievable goal for people coming out of university. I'm $19,000 in debt currently, so I have to pay that off before I can even think of getting a place," she said.

Tamara Barker Watson, the CEO of Whitestone Builders and Renovators, said she's meeting an increasing number of would-be buyers that are returning home from the west.

"They definitely have the down payment," she said.

"They're on the fence on what to do, they don't know where they're going to be working next, so they just thought they would plunk their butt in an apartment for a little while."

Alex MacDonald, a Regional Economist for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, says the increasing number of multi-unit buildings are condominiums in other parts of Canada.

In Halifax, however, the majority are apartments for rent.

"There's a national trend toward densification," he said.