Home sales in Greater Saint John continue to put up solid figures, according to the local real estate board.
New figures show there were 261 homes sold last month, the second-highest total for any May on record.
Kevin Donovan, president of the Saint John Real Estate Board, said that is partly due to a surge in new listings.
“The above-average number of newly listed properties provided a broader choice of homes for the current pool of buyers,” Donovan said in a news release.
“As a result, overall inventory continues to slowly rise from the unsustainably low levels seen earlier this year.”
There were 422 new residential listings in May, an increase of more than nine per cent year over year.
Meanwhile, the number of active listings reached 579 at the end of May, compared to 447 a month earlier. But that was still 24 per cent lower than the same time in 2021.
In fact, the number of active listings has not been this low in the month of May in more than two decades.
The months of inventory — the number of months it would take to sell current inventories at the current rate of sales activity — numbered 2.2, down from the long-run average of 8.6 months for this time of year.
Donovan also noted that home sale prices continued their march higher over the past month.
The average price of homes sold in May was a record $317,596, up by more than 25 per cent from a year earlier.
While overall sales were lower compared to last year, the dollar value of all home sales set a new record at $82.9 million.
The Saint John Real Estate Board covers the southern part of New Brunswick to the U.S. border in St. Stephen and includes the counties of Saint John, Kings, Charlotte and portions of Queens.
