It has been close to 2 months since I have written my initial blog, and I am extremely encouraged to see by the numbers that the market has been keeping pace with 2008. I am not surprised, however, as it has been evident with how busy we as agents have been continuously thought out this year.
For closed sales (totally value of Real Estate sold) we are less than 1% behind 2008, on 1759 sales compared to 1998 sales in 2008. This is a significant difference, therefore the average price has certainly gone up. This upswing in business has been great for us Realtors but is also having a positive effect on other businesses. The manager of a large furniture store, for example, tells me business has been terrific for them this year as well. As we all know, if our business is good, there are many positive effects on many businesses around the community.
This time around looking a little deeper into the statistics, I discovered something interesting and very telling explaining why the market does feel much different than it did in 2008. To this point (end of September) there have been 4712 listings (723 more than in 2008) and 1757 expired listings (listings that did not sell), almost TWICE as many as in 2008. This tells us a lot, as there is much more inventory now for buyers to choose from, which slants much more towards being a buyers market than seller’s market.
The Kennebecasis Valley and Uptown Saint John areas continue to lead the market recovery, with activity in other areas of the Greater Saint John region picking up more slowly.
