The price index

Are prices actually going up

A median moves when the mix of what sold moves. One expensive month on the river can lift it without a single house changing in value. The index answers the question properly by pricing the same specified home every month.

Benchmark price, August 2026

$355,700

+3.8%
One year: +20.1%
Three years: +49.3%
Five years

The house being priced

Three bedrooms, one bathroom, 1,604 square feet above ground, built in 1984, baseboard electric heat on municipal sewer.

It is not any real house. It is a fixed specification the index prices month after month, which is exactly why the line only moves when prices do. The number means nothing until you can picture the home it describes.

Series covers January 2024 to August 2026, 32 months.

What it takes to buy

The income behind the median sale

A median price means very little until it is turned back into a paycheque. This is the qualifying arithmetic on the median August 2026 sale, with every assumption named underneath rather than buried.

$82,000

household income to qualify

with 10% down, before tax

$35,500

down payment

at 10 percent

$2,125

monthly payment

qualified at 6.09%

$73,000

with 20% down instead

$71,000 down

Median August 2026 sale price, qualified at the Bank of Canada posted conventional 5-year rate of 6.09% (2026-09-02), 25-year amortization, Saint John municipal tax on an assessment estimated from the measured sale-to-assessment gap, $150/month heat, 39% gross debt service ceiling. CMHC premium of 3.1% added to the insured case. This is qualification arithmetic for one typical home, not advice about what anyone should borrow, and a lender’s own numbers govern. Run yours on the mortgage calculator.

When to list

Spring is the crowd, not the advantage

June puts more homes on the market here than any other month, about 340 of them against roughly 220 sales. Every one of those sellers is competing for the same buyers. In October and November about 92% of what comes to market sells, with far fewer homes on it.

Timing is not the biggest lever on your sale. Price and preparation are, and that is why this page leads with them. But if the choice is genuinely open, January is the one month that reliably costs time: a median of 39.25 days against about 21.5 in March, May, June. That is roughly 2.5 extra weeks with a sign on the lawn.

Median new listings, sales and days on market by calendar month across Saint John and area.
Month	Listed	Sold	Days to sell
Jan	146	96	39.25
Feb	159	128	28.75
Mar	239	146	21.5
Apr	291	166	22
May	321	216	21.5
Jun	340	220	21.5
Jul	308	223	23
Aug	271	223	25.5
Sep	274	191	23
Oct	244	218	24.5
Nov	187	175	28
Dec	87	117	27.5

Homes listedHomes sold

Each month is the median of the last 5 years (2021 to 2026), taken from the newest board report that covers that calendar month, because the board revises earlier figures as later reports are published. The region is Saint John and area, which is wider than the towns this site’s own listing pages filter to. Prices are deliberately left out: a per-month median across years mixes the trend with the season. December’s sales run high against its new listings because almost nobody lists in December, which makes it an artifact of a thin month rather than a good month to sell. Source: Canadian MLS® Systems, CREA. Saint John and Area MLS® Residential Market Activity report, published by the New Brunswick Real Estate Board. The reports are public. Wondering how this lands on your street? Ask for a real number.

None of this tells you what your home is worth

It tells you what the market did. Your home depends on the roof, the kitchen, the street and the week you list, and that part takes a person walking through it.

Ask what yours would sell for Back to the market

The Ellis Team at REAL Brokerage. Index figures are CREA’s MLS® Home Price Index; seasonality and affordability derive from the New Brunswick Real Estate Board’s public monthly reports. No tax or accounting advice is given anywhere on this site.