New Brunswick’s real estate market saw a slight cooling in August, according to the province’s real estate board.
A total of 901 homes switched hands last month, a drop of 8.8 per cent compared to the same time last year.
At the local level, home sales were up 2.2 per cent in Fredericton and dropped in Greater Moncton (-2.9 per cent), Saint John (-18.7 per cent) and Northern and Valley Regions (-20.3 per cent).
“The number of newly listed properties dropped for the third consecutive month, marking the first monthly year-over-year decline since early spring,” Mike Power, chair of the New Brunswick Real Estate Board, said in a news release.
“As a result, inventory levels tightened, with active listings at the end of August sitting just shy of the five-year average.”
There were 1,125 new residential listings in August, down 8.2 per cent year over year and the lowest number of new listings for the month in two decades.
Active residential listings numbered 3,284 units on the market at the end of August, a year-over-year increase of 10 per cent.
Months of inventory — the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity — numbered 3.6, unchanged from three months a year earlier and down from the long-run average of 5.9 months for this time of year.
Power said despite this, prices held steady, with the benchmark price for single-family homes coming in at $309,800.
