New Brunswick Home Sales Numbers for August Show Increase
New Brunswick came close to breaking a record for home sales in August with 813 units sold through the MLS Systems of real estate boards, the highest rate of sales since 2007.
August 2016 came in only 22 sales shy of the 2007 record for the same month and was up 19.2 per cent on a year-over-year basis, the Canadian Real Estate Association reported.
Home sales were up from last year 51.5 per cent in Saint John, 22.1 per cent in Fredericton, 8.1 per cent in Moncton and down 18.1 per cent in the northern region.
The average price of home sales in New Brunswick, at $168,737, was up 8.9 per cent from last year. The amount of residential listings added to the MLS Systems of real estate boards was down 2.4 per cent since then, while the amount of active listings on the boards was down 12.3 per cent.
New Brunswick Real Estate Association president Robert Stewart says the increase is definitely a positive sign and that it can be credited partially to the increase in HST, which went up two per cent in July and encouraged people to buy and sell beforehand. He adds that the land transfer tax increase in April also made people want to get things moving.
“Our markets are a little different throughout the province here,” Stewart said. “It’s predominantly still a buyer’s market area but it is slowly shifting and some areas are definitely doing a lot better than others. Our sales have been good.”
Stewart says it’s always hard to predict what the future of real estate in New Brunswick will look like but that he expects the rest of the year to be better than we’ve had in the past.
“People are still buying and people are still selling and the market seems to be stabilizing … so I think we’re definitely going to be headed for a good year this year.”