People are LEAVING Halifax… Here’s Why

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Halifax has always been known as the affordable alternative to bigger cities like Toronto and Vancouver, but that reality is changing fast. A recent news article just highlighted that rental prices in Halifax are now some of the highest in the country, and this is getting to the point where it's starting to push people away altogether. If [music] this trend continues, it's not just renters that'll be impacted. It could fundamentally change the entire housing market. In this video, I'm going to dive into what's really happening and [music] why this might be a much bigger problem than people realize. This recent article by Global highlights the most recent data in the rentals.ca report, and it's not a good look for Halifax.

[00:00:39][music] Halifax's average rental was $2,269 versus the Canadian average that was $2,030.

[00:00:47]So, we're 12% higher than [music] the average. For a one-bedroom, it was $2,023.

[00:00:54]The Canadian average is 1781, a difference of 13.6%.

[00:00:59]And for a two-bedroom, it was 2550 versus the Canadian average of 2162, which is an 18% [music] difference. So, our rents are above the Canadian average, and here's where it gets interesting. In looking at the average household incomes, Nova Scotia is second to last in the latest data available from Stats Canada, which is normally lagging a little bit, but this is the most recent data that we have.

[00:01:24]So, we have the second lowest household income. Meanwhile, for purpose-built rental [music] apartments and condos in February, Nova Scotia had the second highest asking rent, only [music] barely behind BC. This didn't just happen overnight. This problem has been building for years, no pun [music] intended. For years, Halifax simply didn't build enough housing. Population growth was slow, demand was manageable, but then everything changed. Over the last 10 years, Halifax saw a massive surge in migration, and the housing [music] supply just wasn't ready for it.

[00:01:57]Our population grew by approximately 17% from 2015 to 2025.

[00:02:03]This was starting to happen before the pandemic. In fact, we had years like 2016 [music] where Halifax was the fastest growing downtown core in Canada, but the pandemic really escalated this trend in a huge way. This created the perfect storm. Yes, we had a lot of immigration and interprovincial migration into our province and into Halifax, but this was a problem that was already underway, and this was simply accelerated by [music] the result of the pandemic. People may say, "But hey, we're building a lot of homes right now." And while this is the case, [music] the problem isn't necessarily with the amount that we're currently building.

[00:02:41]The problem [music] is with the disconnect of what we're building versus what we really need. Yes, we are building record high right now in terms of HRM. Right now, we have about 15,000 housing units under construction. But of these 15,000, approximately 13 to 13 and 1/2 thousand are apartments, and most of them are high-end apartments. They're going to be renting out for $2,500 or $3,000 a month or more. The disconnect [music] is the fact that we're not building anything that is an affordable rental or affordable housing units for people to purchase. In terms of what we're looking at for first-time home buyers, for example, those products are simply not being built throughout the HRM not in the mass quantities that we really need. So, even though we have a lot more housing supply being built right now, it's not truly solving the problem, and that big problem is the lack of affordability within the rental market and within the resale and new construction housing market. This issue isn't happening in isolation. Everything you see in Halifax right now, as you know if you've been living here, is more [music] expensive. Things like groceries, property taxes, insurance, heating costs, all these different items that you're paying [music] for are more expensive. So, even if rent prices and housing prices were not on the rise like they have been, people would still likely be feeling squeezed. But, when rental prices and home prices are also on the rise, that's where you start to see people making decisions or asking themselves the question of should I really be staying here or should I be moving away? And this connects directly into something I talk a lot about on this channel, which is the affordability gap. So, right now, the average household income in Nova Scotia can afford a home of about $400,000.

[00:04:30]Yet, the average sale price in HRM, for instance, is $610,000.

[00:04:36]That is a huge, huge gap to overcome and one that several people or even the majority of people are not able to overcome. [music] So, what happens is people rent longer.

[00:04:47]They can't save enough money for a down payment. They delay buying. And this puts more pressure on the rental market [music] and then the cycle continues.

[00:04:54]And on the housing market side, we're not building a proper path into the market. This is one of the biggest issues, in my opinion. There used to be a natural progression.

[00:05:03]>> [music] >> Rent, buy a starter home, and then move up to a bigger home. But, now that entry point is disappearing. And if people can't get into the market, they stay renters longer, which drives more demand and driving rents even >> [music] >> higher. So, the question is what happens next? And in my opinion, there are three likely scenarios. Scenario one, rents stay high, maybe they stabilize slightly, but we're not seeing a major drop anytime soon based on what I'm seeing on the ground level. Maybe slightly from the top down, but it doesn't mean that it will equate to an actual affordable market as a whole.

[00:05:37]Scenario two, more people leave.

[00:05:39]Population growth slows, which could take some pressure off of the rental and housing market. But, is this really a long-term positive outcome? Scenario three, this would be a long-term fix.

[00:05:51]More supply comes, but more importantly, the right type of supply. Entry-level houses, affordable units, and better balance. But this takes time, and at the moment, we're basically seeing none of this. When people start leaving a city because of affordability, this is a big deal. And in a lot of cases, we're talking about young professionals, and we're talking about essential workers.

[00:06:14]These are the exact types of people that keep a city running and keep a city moving forward. If you're still here watching, I'd love to hear from you in the comments below. If you know people who are thinking about leaving Halifax, drop it in the comments below. And until next time, if you got any value out of this video, don't forget to hit that like button and subscribe to the channel, and we'll see you on the next video.