Nova Scotia house prices up 25% in April compared to last year

Realtor Tammy Hines says she’s never seen the market like this in the nearly two decades she’s been in the industry

CITYnews halifax \ Chris Stoodley

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Over the past 18 years of being a realtor, Tammy Hines has never seen Nova Scotia’s housing market like it is today.

Hines, who’s an agent in the Annapolis Valley, said home sales in the province were down 25 per cent in April 2022 compared to last year.

That’s related to the fact that inventory is down 17 per cent.

“This, of course, still had a push on prices,” Hines, who’s also board president for the Nova Scotia Association of Realtors (NSAR), said. “Given this, the prices are up another 25 per cent this year over last year’s April market numbers.”

Hines told The Todd Veinotte Show this is something she’s never experienced throughout her career.

“I know that there was an uptick in the market back, I believe, in 2017, HRM more so than the Valley,” Hines said. “But certainly not to this extent.”

She added that there are several reasons for the booming market.

For one, Nova Scotia has seen a rise in migration over the past few years, where the province surpassed the one million population milestone last winter.

“But also, the low-interest rates have certainly helped assist people to get into mortgages as opposed to paying the high rental rates,” she said.

However, the hot market has been challenging for many buyers across the province.

The NSAR reveals the average price of homes sold in March 2022 was a record $450,581, up 23.3 per cent from March 2021.

That number is only expected to grow. According to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s latest market outlook, home prices in Nova Scotia will likely continue increasing between 2022 and 2024, but at a slower pace.

While some might think Canada is currently inside a housing bubble, Hines said local realtors think otherwise.

“Unfortunately, none of us have a crystal ball,” she said. “We don’t honestly believe we’re in a bubble. We do think things are going to level out as more homes come on the market, but we do not see any drastic drops.”

She said historically, prices don’t fall once they’ve already risen.

“I know that there are some areas, perhaps in Canada, that that may have happened, but they were extraordinarily overheated,” Hines said. “Nova Scotia’s been kind of behind in our prices for many, many years. So, a lot of our price increases, unfortunately, were a catch-up.

“Now that we’re caught up, once we see more inventory, we figure that we will stable.”

According to the NSAR, the active number of listings on the market at the end of March 2022 totalled 1,857. That’s down 27.8 per cent from the end of March 2021.

Moreover, there were 1,622 new listings on the market in March 2022, down 21.1 per cent compared to last March.

In other parts of Canada that have seen housing shortages, Hines said the only thing that has alleviated that issue is new construction.

“This does take time,” Hines said. “Unfortunately, we just kind of have to stick to it and get through these very challenging times. Hopefully, the government will continue to look at what we’ve been advocating for in the last few years and work on affordable housing.”