This is the question I get more than almost any other from people moving here, and it usually arrives with an assumption already attached: that the Southside is the expensive side and the Northside is the affordable one.
The board’s own numbers say that is not true. Not approximately, not mostly — it does not hold up at all.
Here is the honest version, using the October 2026 MLS® Home Price Index benchmarks for each area and the Province’s published 2026 tax rates. No side wins. What actually matters is something else, and I will get to it at the end.
Where exactly is the line?
The short answer: the Saint John River. Everything north of it is the Northside, everything south of it is the Southside, and the two are joined by the Westmorland Street and Princess Margaret bridges, with the Bill Thorpe walking bridge for people on foot and on bikes.
On the Northside, inside the city, you are mainly talking about Nashwaaksis, Marysville and Devon, and Barkers Point.
On the Southside, inside the city: Downtown, the Hill, College Hill, Skyline Acres and Southwood Park and Silverwood and Garden Creek.
One thing worth clearing up, because it confuses people reading listings. The MLS® area names “Fredericton North” and “Fredericton South” are not the same as Northside and Southside. Those zones run well past the city limits — “Fredericton North” includes Keswick, Burtts Corner and Maugerville, and “Fredericton South” includes Hanwell, New Maryland and Rusagonis. When someone local says Northside, they mean inside the city, across the river. When a listing says Fredericton North, it might mean a property twenty-five minutes up the Keswick road.
Is the Southside more expensive than the Northside?
No. Here are the six areas inside the city, in price order, with the October 2026 benchmark for each.
| Area | Side | Benchmark | 5-year change |
| Downtown | South | $434,800 | +46.8% |
| Nashwaaksis | North | $411,000 | +41.9% |
| Skyline Acres / Southwood Park | South | $403,900 | +43.8% |
| Hill Area | South | $383,700 | +49.2% |
| Marysville / Devon | North | $313,400 | +52.7% |
| Silverwood | South | $279,300 | +49.6% |
Read that list again with the assumption in mind. The cheapest area inside the city is on the Southside. Silverwood, at $279,300, is more than $130,000 below Nashwaaksis on the Northside. The Hill and Skyline Acres, both Southside, both sit below Nashwaaksis too.
The gap between the two sides is small. The gap within each side is enormous. Nashwaaksis and Marysville are both Northside, about ten minutes apart, and $97,600 separates them. Downtown and Silverwood are both Southside and $155,500 apart.
The river is not a price line. It never has been. The price line in this city runs between neighbourhoods, not between sides.
Do you pay more property tax on one side?
No. The rate is identical. Every residential property inside the City of Fredericton pays the same 2026 local rate of $1.3086 per $100 of assessed value, whichever side of the river it sits on. On a $448,200 home that is $5,865, north or south.
There is a real tax story in this region, but it has nothing to do with the bridge. It happens at the city boundary. Cross out of the city and the rate falls sharply — Lincoln is $0.5542, Hanwell $0.3683, Noonan $0.5554, Saint Mary’s $0.6659. That is where the money is, and it costs you city services and a longer drive to get it. The full table, with what each one actually works out to, is on the Fredericton property tax page.
If you have read somewhere that the Southside carries higher taxes, that is simply wrong, and it is wrong in a way that could cost you a good house.
What about the bridges?
This is the one real difference, and it is the one worth taking seriously. If you live on one side and work on the other, you cross a bridge twice a day, and at peak times that crossing is the slowest part of your commute.
It is not a disaster — this is Fredericton, not Toronto. But it is the difference between a seven-minute drive and a twenty-minute one at the wrong hour, and it is the factor people most often underestimate when they are looking at a map rather than sitting in the car.
My advice is always the same: before you commit to a side, drive your actual commute at your actual departure time, in both directions, on a weekday. Not on the Saturday you came to look at houses. If you work downtown or at one of the hospitals and you are considering the Northside, that one test will tell you more than any neighbourhood guide can.
Which side is better for families?
Both work, and the question is really about logistics rather than sides. Each side has elementary and middle schools, parks, rinks and fields. What changes is which catchment a specific address falls into, and catchments do not follow the river — they follow boundaries that can split a single street.
So the useful question is not “which side” but “which schools does this address feed into, and how far is the walk or the bus.” Check the catchment for the specific house with the district before you make an offer, because two houses a block apart can be in different ones. I will not tell you which schools are better — that is not my call to make and it is not something a REALTOR® should be ranking.
On the Northside, Nashwaaksis and Marysville both give you a lot of house for the money with established streets and mature trees. On the Southside, Skyline Acres and Southwood Park are the long-standing family answer, and Silverwood is where a first family home is most achievable right now.
Which side suits students, UNB and STU staff?
The Southside, clearly — this is the one question where the answer is one-sided. Both universities sit on the Southside, and so does the hospital and most of the provincial government. If you are walking to campus, you want College Hill, the Hill or Downtown.
If you are buying rather than renting, the trade-off is that proximity to campus is priced in, and you are competing with investors for the same stock. I have written separately about buying versus renting student housing in Fredericton.
Which side holds its value better?
Over five years, the strongest in-city performer is on the Northside. Marysville and Devon are up 52.7% since 2021 — the highest of any area inside the city, ahead of the Hill at 49.2%, Silverwood at 49.6% and Downtown at 46.8%.
Over three years the leader flips to Silverwood on the Southside, up 32.1%.
There is a pattern underneath both, and it is not about sides: the areas that started cheapest have climbed fastest. Marysville, Devon and Silverwood were the affordable entry points five years ago and they have closed the most ground. That is what happens in a market where affordability is the binding constraint, and it is far more useful to know than any north-versus-south generalisation.
Past appreciation is not a forecast, and I am not going to pretend it is. The monthly figures behind all of this are on the Fredericton real estate market report, which I rebuild every month from the board’s data.
So which side should you pick?
Neither. You are not choosing a side — you are choosing a neighbourhood, and the side is the least useful thing to decide first.
Decide these instead, in this order:
1. Your commute. Where do you actually go every day, and do you want a bridge in the middle of it? This is the only question where the river genuinely matters.
2. Your number. $280,000 and $435,000 buy very different houses, and both of those figures exist on both sides. Start from what you can comfortably carry, not from a side.
3. What the house needs to do. Walk to campus, fenced yard, garage, no stairs, room for a workshop. That narrows you to a handful of streets far faster than a side ever will.
Once you have those three, the side answers itself — and it will often surprise you. Plenty of people arrive certain they want the Southside and buy in Nashwaaksis because the house was better and the drive was shorter.
If you want to go at it from the budget end, the Fredericton neighbourhood finder sorts every area in the region into price bands with the current benchmark beside each one. If you would rather browse, every area guide is on the Fredericton neighbourhoods page.
Still not sure which side you belong on?
That is a twenty-minute conversation, not a research project. Tell me where you work, what you can carry and what the house has to do, and I will tell you which five or six streets to be looking at — and which side they happen to be on.
If the honest answer is that you should be looking somewhere you had not considered, I will tell you that too.
Call or text me at (506) 261-7373. I answer my own phone.
Rob Hamel
REALTOR®, Hamel Realty Group
EXIT Realty Advantage, 461 St Marys St, Fredericton, NB E3A 8H4
Sources and notes
Benchmark prices are the October 2026 MLS® Home Price Index for the Fredericton region, prepared for New Brunswick REALTORS® by the Canadian Real Estate Association. A benchmark is the price of a typical home in that area — not an average of whatever happened to sell. Figures are updated monthly on the market report.
Property tax rates are the approved 2026 residential rates as published by the Province of New Brunswick, per $100 of assessed value. Rates are set each November for the following year.
School catchments change and are set by the district, not by me. Confirm the catchment for a specific address before you rely on it.
Published 10 November 2026. I update the benchmark figures on this page each month with the rest of the site.
