Residential sales activity reported through the
MLS® System of the Saint John Real
Estate Board numbered 76 units in December 2011. This was down
four per cent from the same month in 2010, marking an
improvement from the larger decline in November. Home sales in
all of New Brunswick were up three per cent compared to
December 2010.
“Home sales hit a soft patch last summer but have
since been improving, and December marked a continuation of
that trend” said Jason Stephen, President of the Saint John
Real Estate Board. “As a result, sales for the year-to-date
had been catching up with 2010 levels throughout the second
half of the year. That said, the annual sales figure for 2011
did come in below 2010, while prices ended the year about even
with 2010 level.”
A total of 1,572 homes traded hands in 2011. This
stood 10 per cent below the annual total in 2010. The average
price for homes sold in 2011 was $170,354, edging down just
four tenths of one per cent from 2010. The annual average
price for homes sold in New Brunswick was $160,545, up two per
cent from 2010.
The average price for homes sold in December 2011
was $162,859, a decrease of two per cent from the same month
in 2010. By comparison, the average price for homes sold in
New Brunswick was $153,089, up seven per cent from December
2010.
New listings numbered 136 units in December, up 27
per cent from December 2010. There were 1,121 active residential listings on the Board’s MLS®
System at the end of December 2011. This was an increase of 10
per cent from the same time in 2010.
There were 11.7 months of inventory at the end of
December 2011 on a seasonally adjusted basis, down from 13.2
months at the end of November. The
number of months of inventory is the number of months it would
take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales
activity.
The total value of all residential sales was $12.4
million in December 2011, down six per cent from a year
earlier. The monthly dollar volume for residential sales in
New Brunswick rose by 11 per cent compared to December
2010.
Sales of all types of properties in Saint John
numbered 85 units in December, down seven per cent from
December 2010. The total value of these property sales was
$15.1 million, an increase of five per cent from year-ago
levels
.
