Marysville and Devon are the cheapest established addresses in Fredericton, and they are rising faster than anywhere else on the north side. They are also the only two neighbourhoods in the city that were built as company towns by the same man.
This page covers what that means for the houses, what they cost, what I check when I walk one, and the one real drawback.
What it costs
The MLS® Home Price Index reports Marysville and Devon together as sub-area H1. The July 2026 benchmark was $307,500.
| Benchmark | 12 months | 3 years | 5 years | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Marysville / Devon (H1) | $307,500 | +4.2% | +20.4% | +54.3% |
| Fredericton North (area) | $383,900 | +6.1% | +23.3% | +49.4% |
| Fredericton and region | $361,100 | +5.9% | +25.1% | +48.5% |
$76,400 below the Fredericton North benchmark, and a five-year gain of 54.3% that beats both the area and the region. Cheapest on this side of the river, and appreciating fastest. That combination is unusual and it is worth understanding before you decide what it means.
Full table for every sub-area is on the Fredericton real estate market page.
Cheaper does not mean cheaper per foot
This is the number that surprises people, and it changes how you should read the discount.
Across the last two years of board sales here, the median home sold was 3 bedrooms, 2 baths, 1,508 square feet, at $339,850. That works out to a median of $229.58 per square foot.
In Nashwaaksis, the other big north-side market, the median home sold was 1,768 square feet at $379,900 — $222.41 per square foot.
So you pay more per square foot in Marysville and Devon than in Nashwaaksis, despite the lower price. The whole of the $40,000 difference is size. These are smaller houses, not cheaper ones, and the market prices the land and the location accordingly.
Other figures from the same two years: median 18 days on market, average 32. Sales ran from $34,900 to $755,000. Median 3 bed, 2 bath.
Alexander Gibson built both of them
Marysville was named by Alexander Gibson in 1866 for his wife. It had about 300 people in 1871. By 1898 it had a cotton mill, two sawmills, a shingle mill, a grist mill, two churches, a hotel, a railway station on the Canada Eastern — and a population of 2,000. It was incorporated as a town in 1886 and stayed one for 87 years, until it amalgamated into Fredericton in 1973.
Devon was first called Moncton, then renamed Gibson after the same industrialist. By 1898 it had six stores, a sawmill, a planing mill and the railway repair shops, with a population of 500. It absorbed St. Mary’s Ferry, North Devon and South Devon, was incorporated as a town in 1917, and took its name from the Duke of Devonshire, then Governor General of Canada.
This is why the houses are small. Nearly nine percent of everything sold here in the last two years was built before 1950 — four times the share in Nashwaaksis. A good deal of that is original mill and railway workers’ housing. It was not built for space. It was built within walking distance of a mill, for the people who worked in it, and that is still the shape of the older streets.
What sold, and when it was built
| Built | Share of sales | Median price |
|---|---|---|
| 1900–1949 | 9% | $279,900 |
| 1950s | 14% | $279,900 |
| 1960s | 12% | $324,900 |
| 1970s | 14% | $339,900 |
| 1980s | 9% | $324,900 |
| 1990s | 2% | $379,900 |
| 2000s | 10% | $399,900 |
| 2010s | 16% | $394,900 |
| 2020s | 14% | $448,000 |
The median home sold here was built in 1983. Two rows are worth pausing on.
The 1990s barely happened. Two percent of sales — seven houses in a decade, where every other decade runs nine to sixteen percent. Building essentially stopped here for ten years.
And it is building hard now. Fourteen percent of recent sales were built in the 2020s, at a median of $448,000 and a median size of about 1,692 square feet. That is roughly 43% larger than the median existing house in the area. New construction here is a different product going up beside the old one, and it is most of what is driving that 54.3% five-year number.
If you are buying an older, smaller house here, that is worth thinking about in both directions. Larger new builds nearby tend to support your value. They can also make a 1,050 square foot house harder to price against.
What I check on a walkthrough
In the older stock — and especially the pre-1950 mill housing — I go through six things.
- Foundations. You will find stone, block and poured concrete here, with block the most common. What you are looking at is very much a house-by-house question in this part of the city.
- Sills. Rot is not as common as people assume. When it is there, the cost depends entirely on how much and how accessible it is — anywhere from a $500 job if you are handy to $5,000 or more for a full replacement.
- Windows. What is original and what has been replaced. On anything updated from the mid-2000s onward, the spacer bar between the panes carries a date code that tells you the age of the sealed unit — there is more on that on the Nashwaaksis page.
- The electrical entrance and panel. A 60 amp service is rare now. 100 amp is very common, and that is worth knowing before you plan on a heat pump, a shop or an EV charger.
- Plumbing. What is original, what has been changed, and whether the work was done properly. In houses of this age it has usually been updated in pieces over a long time rather than all at once.
- Heating. Oil, electric, wood and hot water radiant all turn up here. Radiant is uncommon elsewhere in the city and you will meet it in these older houses.
The oil tanks are the thing to watch
Most of the oil tanks I see here meet insurance requirements — so they will pass, and nobody will raise them during the transaction. But a lot of them are a year or two away from needing replacement.
That is a cost that lands after closing, on a house that inspected fine. Ask how old the tank is, not just whether it passes. It is one of the most common avoidable surprises in this stock.
The drawback is the distance
It is the honest one, and it is the reason the discount exists.
Devon and Marysville are not the same on this, and it matters.
| From | To downtown | Drive | By bus |
|---|---|---|---|
| Devon | 5.0 km | about 10 minutes | about 20 minutes, route 17S |
| Marysville | 9–11 km | 15–17 minutes | about 38 minutes, route 17S |
Marysville to the hospital is about 10.5 km, roughly 12 minutes via Route 8.
Devon sits directly across the river from downtown at the north end of the Princess Margaret Bridge, and it is as close in as most of the north side. Marysville is genuinely further out, up the Nashwaak, and the bus takes nearly forty minutes.
Then add the bridges. There are only two vehicle crossings in Fredericton, and traffic backs up southbound between roughly 7:45 and 9:00 in the morning and northbound between about 4:30 and 6:00 in the afternoon, Monday to Friday. If you commute to the south side on a fixed schedule, build that in.
Who buys here
In my experience the buyers who do best in Marysville and Devon are the ones who actively want an older house — people who like the character and the quirks, and who are not looking for an open-plan build with everything square. If that is you, this is the best value in the city for it. If it is not, the older streets will frustrate you and you would be happier in the newer stock.
Taxes
Both pay the City of Fredericton inside rate — $1.3086 per $100 of assessment for 2026, unchanged from 2025. On a home assessed at $307,000 that is roughly $4,017 a year before any provincial credits. Because both came into the city in 1973 rather than 2023, neither is on the outside rate that applies to the recently annexed areas.
What the public record does not tell you
- Flood exposure. Both sit near water — Devon on the Saint John, Marysville on the Nashwaak — and neighbourhood-level flood mapping is not published in a usable form. It is checked address by address on GeoNB, and I do that before an offer.
- Boundaries. The real estate board reports Marysville and Devon as one sub-area. The City has a Marysville ward and separate wards covering Devon. The two geographies do not line up, and the sales figures above come from a board grouping that also includes Barker’s Point.
- Municipal servicing. Both have been fully in the city since 1973, but no public map shows every line. Confirmed per property.
- Population and demographics. Statistics Canada does not report at this geography, so any figure you see quoted has been estimated.
Thinking about buying or selling here?
I came to real estate from residential construction, which is the useful background to have in a neighbourhood where a good many houses are older than anyone reading this. If you want someone to look at a stone foundation, a sill and an oil tank and tell you what you are actually taking on, call or text (506) 261-7373 or email info@hamelrealty.com. I answer my own phone.
Where to go from here
- Fredericton neighbourhoods — how the areas compare, and which one fits.
- Nashwaaksis — the other big north-side market, bigger houses and a higher price.
- Silverwood — the cheapest address on the south side, and the reason it is cheaper.
- Fredericton real estate market — benchmark prices for every sub-area, updated monthly.
- What is my Fredericton home worth? — why an online estimate is not market value.
