Courtesy Greater Moncton Realtors

There is cautious optimism from the head of Greater Moncton Realtors after the first month of 2023.

New figures released Monday showed a total of 174 homes were sold during the month of January.

That bucked the trend of consecutive month-over-month declines we saw leading into the end of 2022, according to Mike Power, president of Greater Moncton Realtors.

“Obviously, one month does not signify a reversal of the long-term trend, but by posting right around the number of sales we would expect for this time of year, we are cautiously optimistic that sales have returned to the seasonal norm,” Power said in a news release.

On the other hand, he said, new listings for the month were still trending below average, causing overall inventory to contract for the fifth straight month.

There were 246 new listings added last month. While that was higher than what we saw last January, it was 23 per cent below the 10-year average for the month.

Active residential listings numbered 780 units at the end of January, which was 47 per cent below the 10-year average for the month.

Power said real estate conditions in our region remain quite tight and market balance continues to climb further into sellers’ territory.

“Only time will tell where our local market will head in the next few months, but the recent change in tone from the Bank of Canada suggesting a pause in their tightening cycle is encouraging and may well bring sidelined buyers and sellers back into the market,” he said.

The overall composite benchmark price of a home last month in Greater Moncton was $302,100, which was up 3.2 per cent compared to a year earlier.