Home renovations rise in North Bay, buck national trend

The Municipal Property Assessment Corporation says for the first time in three years, Canadians are putting less money into their homes.

While officials with MPAC told CTV News home renos are down 12 per cent nationwide, that doesn’t seem to be the case in North Bay.

“There’s still a lot of construction happening in North Bay, especially in residential homes. We really can’t keep up to the demand coming in,” said James Scanlan, owner of Connected Plumbing and Construction.

“I don’t really foresee it slowing down in North Bay … North Bay has always been a little bit different than the province I find, and North Bay is currently on the uptick.”

MPAC said the permits are most commonly for renovations, additions, decks, garages and swimming pools.

“Although we’ve seen a decline, generally across the board we are seeing higher permit numbers in 2022 than we even saw in 2019,” said MPAC vice-president Carmelo Lipsi.

“As much as they’re coming down, they haven’t reduced down to the level we saw in 2019.”

In North Bay, people want their kitchens and bathrooms redone.

“People are looking to pull equity out of their homes,” said Scanlan.

“To do that, they’re updating their kitchens and bathrooms to build equity, so they can draw off of that. That’s really the driver right now -- bathroom and kitchens and those smaller renovations.”

MPAC said that the numbers overall in the province have dropped because people are now putting their money back into travelling and because the cost of renovations has gone up.