Housing markets in New Brunswick remain tight. Homes under construction like these on Rockingstone Drive in Saint John are often sold before they are built. (Robert Jones / CBC News – Image Credit)
The rise in property prices over the past three years has cost New Brunswick its status as Canada’s cheapest province to buy a home.
This title now belongs to Saskatchewan.
According to data compiled by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) and published last month, the estimated reference price for a home sold in New Brunswick in April, including homes, townhouses and condominiums, was $ 313,700.
That’s 34.2 percent more than a year earlier and nearly double the price in the province for the past three years.
Robert Jones / CBC News
Home sales in New Brunswick in 2022 have not been as frantic as in 2021, with deals that were about 17% below last year’s record levels, but most of everything shown is for sale. and prices have remained strong, according to Saint John real estate agent Marcus Power.
“The number of buyers has slowed, but there are still several offers on each listing,” Power said.
“I’m writing offers that are rejected every day.”
Robert Jones / CBC News
The New Brunswick housing market boomed during the COVID-19 pandemic with thousands of Canadians moving east in search of cheaper housing, more space or a different lifestyle. .
Thousands of immigrants also came from abroad, generating the largest population growth in the province in more than 40 years.
Statistics Canada estimates that 804,000 people now live in New Brunswick, 31,000 more in the last three years.
The influx created an intense demand for housing that has increased both the cost of owning a house and renting an apartment.
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Prices have risen in every corner of the province, but especially in the Moncton area, where the benchmark price of a single-family home in Dieppe in April reached a record $ 480,000. That’s an increase of $ 128,000 from last year.
“Price pressure remains constant,” Mike Power, president of Greater Moncton Realtors, said in a press release on record prices in southeast New Brunswick.
“Market conditions are still a long way from achieving balance in our region.”
The story goes on
There are still offers in the province.
Prices in northern New Brunswick are 35% below the provincial average, although these have also risen significantly over the past three years.
Ed Hunter / CBC News
According to CREA data, the global benchmark selling price of a home in New Brunswick three years ago in April 2019 was $ 172,200. It was the cheapest among the provinces by a significant margin at the time and well below Saskatchewan, which had a reference home sale price of $ 258,900.
However, this April prices in New Brunswick rose by $ 141,500 from three years ago and now prices in Saskatchewan have been caught and surpassed by $ 313,700.
It now has the cheapest housing prices in the provinces at $ 295,000.
However, house prices in New Brunswick remain the cheapest in Atlantic Canada and remain below the national average.
In Canada, the reference sale price of a home in April was $ 746,146.