For a few short months, it seemed like Halifax’s housing market might finally be cooling off.
The pandemic had fueled massive increases in home prices through 2020 and the first half of 2021. But from May to August the average price of a home in Nova Scotia finally started falling.
That four-month downward trend was a welcome respite for home buyers. As it unfolded, industry experts started talking about a much-needed market correction.
Now, that correction is looking a little less likely.
New data shows Nova Scotia’s downward home price trend evaporating. Last month, the average price of a home in the province went up in a big way.
According to the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors, the average price of a home in Nova Scotia was $356,757 in September. That’s a significant jump from the $350,463 average price in August.
In Halifax, prices are even higher. Last month, the average home cost $471,746 in the city.
Take a closer look at the housing market in Halifax and it’s not hard to see why.
Although prices had fallen over the past four months, many of the problems that caused the initial spike remained as bad as ever. The supply of homes on the market was hovering around a record low and new listings remained sparse.
As Royal LePage Atlantic president Matt Honsberger told Huddle at the time, the price drops were likely a result of the normal summer market. People tend to be busier in the summer and often put off house hunting.
That eases demand slightly, pulling prices down.
Now, it appears demand is picking back up, which the supply side of the market is still stretched incredibly thin.
Across the province, 1,387 new homes went up for sale last month—a 19.5 percent drop from a year earlier. In total, there were 2,866 homes for sale across the province, down 28.4 percent from September 2020.
According to the NSAR, active listings haven’t been this low in September for more than 15 years. If no new homes were put on the market, it would only take 2.2 months for the rest to be bought up.
Compare that to more “normal” times, when it would take as long as 8.9 months for every home on the market to sell.
Last month, Honesberger told Huddle that, even though things have calmed somewhat in Halifax’s housing market, that calm is only relative to an insane 2020. He said he expects the market to remain fairly wild for a while.
“The things that we look at the most closely, the things that support the fundamentals of the market, are population growth and availability of employment,” he said. “Both of those two factors right now suggest that there’s a lot of sound underlying economic strength behind what’s happening in Atlantic Canada.
***Trevor Nichols is a reporter with HuddleToday.ca. Huddle Today Limited and Acadia Broadcasting are each part of the Ocean Capital Group.
