It always gives me tremendous pleasure to read the activity data issued quarterly by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. There is little doubt that the housing market information researched and correlated by this body is superior in the every sense of the word. For those who enjoy minute detail, you’ll find it available in spades. Conversely, for those who enjoy an interesting summary of the salient statistics, you’ll also be incredibly well served.
It seems that housing activity for the second quarter in New Brunswick, whilst generally down from last year, was still able to yield some surprising and welcome results.
As expected, new construction was generally down in all three urban centers of Fredericton, Saint John, and Moncton. The greatest year over year decline in construction occurred in Moncton, where total starts were down by 44.5 per cent. Saint John recorded a moderate drop of 5.8 per cent, whilst Fredericton weighed in with a decline of 4.6 per cent. Demand for new construction, whether for single starts or multiple starts is expected to remain fairly sluggish in the tri-community for the remainder of 2009. The provincial housing outlook for total housing starts for New Brunswick for 2009 is forecasted at 3,285. We can expect 2010 to be marginally better with the construction of 3,500 new starts. By contrast, the forecast for the whole of Canada is 141,900 and 150,300 for 2009 and 2010 respectively, with Ontario and Quebec taking up the lion’s share.
The second quarter of 2009 saw the average price of a new home increase in all three cities. Fredericton experienced the most significant price increase, where the average price of homes built in the second quarter was up by 14.2 per cent to $257,771. The average price of a new home in Saint John rose by 10.3 per cent to $275,381, whilst price growth in Moncton was fairly flat with a year over year increase of 0.2 per cent to $217,360.
However, it is in MLS Sales that some unexpected results were seen.
Fredericton led the Province in MLS sales, the only city of the three to illustrate an increase in this category. Though a year over year increase of 0.8 per cent is nothing to crow about, it is certainly preferable to a decline of any amount. The average price of a home sold in Fredericton during the second quarter was up 3.5 per cent to $172,116.
Second quarter MLS sales in Moncton fell by 23.9 per cent. The average price of a home sold in Moncton during the second quarter illustrated a moderate 2.6 per cent increase to $149,502.
Sales in Saint John dropped by 11.3 per cent. However, the average price growth prize goes to Saint John where a 7.9 per cent increase bolstered the average price of a home in that city to $180,526 for the second quarter.
Now if you are not a numbers person, this article has probably bored you to tears and I apologize for that. However, should numbers sing to you, it is very apparent that when compared to our U.S. counterparts where foreclosures rivet the landscape, the prudence, sound judgement and clarity of purpose of the major banking institutions has served us very well. An interesting and alarming statistic I recently came across is that for every job posted by Starbucks, there are 6000 applicants. Can you imagine 6000 applicants lining up to apply for a vacancy at Tim Horton’s in either Fredericton, Saint John or Moncton? The very image of such a scenario sends my mind racing!
The good news is 2010 is looming quickly and I am convinced that our optimism and enthusiasm combined with a lot of hard work will lead us back to a position where normalcy is restored.
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