Residential building permit applications in Calgary last month were well ahead of November last year, showing the strength of the new homes market has continued into the fall.

Last month there were 532 permit applications for new, single-family homes, valued at $137 million, and 441 applications for single-family home improvements, valued at $8 million.

This compares to 188 new single-family applications worth $45 million and 321 single-family improvement applications worth $6 million last November.

In the new multi-family home sector, there were 90 building permit applications for 139 residential units, valued at $19 million, compared to 49 applications for 63 units, valued at $7.8 million last year.

A total of 1,188 residential building permit applications (new and improvement) valued at $167 million were issued in November, up from 668 applications worth $63 million in November last year.

Year-to-date, permit applications are slightly ahead of the same period last year — 11,847 compared to 11,331. However, the total value this year, $1.29 billion, is marginally behind last year’s $1.34 billion.

Non-residential values, at $93 million, are down 72% compared to $335 million for the same period last year.

“On the non-residential side, we continue to see activity in the institutional sector,” says David Watson, general manager of Planning, Development & Assessment.

“We need to continue to monitor the situation moving into 2010 to see how changes in the economy may influence all sectors of building construction activity.”

Year-to-date spending in the institutional sector is $1.1 billion, compared to $667 million in 2008 and $212 million in 2007.

Year-to-date spending in the commercial sector is $713 million, compared to $1.5 billion in 2008 and $2.5 billion in 2007.