Saskatoon real estate week in review–November 2-6 2009
Saskatoon real estate sales retreated from last week’s unseasonably high rate, dropping by fourteen properties to finish the week with a total of sixty-nine house and condo sales reported to the Saskatoon MLS. Still, that number represents an increase of twenty-one home sales when compared with the same week in 2008.
New listings bounced higher and gained twenty-five properties from last week for a total of eighty-eight houses and condominiums, coming very close to last year’s tally for the same period with ninety-two Saskatoon homes were offered for sale. That’s about as close as we’ve come to hitting the previous year’s listing numbers since spring of this year.
In spite of the fact that new listings exceeded sales by nearly twenty homes, month end expired listings pushed the inventory of active Saskatoon MLS listings lower again to a total of eight hundred and ninety-five listings, marking the first weekly close below nine hundred units since spring of last year. Last year at this time, inventory had passed its peak and was declining rapidly, but its fall started from a much higher point and at the end of the same week in 2008 nearly sixteen hundred properties were still for sale. The current inventory consists of five hundred and twenty-two houses and three hundred and fourteen condominiums with the balance of the inventory consisting of duplexes, semi-detached homes, mobiles and vacant lots. At the close of the same week last year we had nine hundred and seventy-one houses and five hundred and twenty-three condominiums showing an active status on our system.
Cancelled and withdrawn listing remained low at just eighteen properties, and seven of those immediately returned as a new listing. Meanwhile, the Saskatoon multiple listing service processed forty-one price adjustments.
Following a couple of weeks that were uncharacteristically soft on price due to lower end market activity, the average selling price of a Saskatoon home bounced back, increasing approximately thirty-seven thousand dollars from last week to $292,327. The six-week average price made some upward gains climbing three thousand dollars on a week-over-week basis to $279,270, lower than last year’s number by roughly seventy-four hundred dollars. The four-week median also made gains picking up nearly six thousand dollars on the week and finishing about a thousand dollars behind the four-week median for this week last year.
Click the image for a larger version of the graph.
Higher selling prices brought the average underbid for homes that sold below the asking price to $11,037 from $9,807 the week before. The average discount also edged slightly higher to nearly 3.7% from 3.4% the previous week. The percentage of Saskatoon homes selling within ten thousand dollars of the asking price remained high at seventy-six percent marking the fifth consecutive weeks that it has hovered in the seventy percent or higher range. The remainder of completed deals for this week was evenly split amongst the other higher discount categories.
Map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate areas
Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate
15 comments so far. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
November 7th, 2009 at 10:12 PM
Norm,
I may be wrong, if I remember correctly from early last year when listing were growing, 700 listing was the transition point from sellers to balance market. If that number still holds true we could be in a sellers market by the end of the year, assuming that the current downward trend in listings continues for the next 6 or 7 weeks. Given the historical Saskatoon spring market, combined with possibly entering it in as sellers market, I am feeling a little pressure to get off the fence and buy while i still can. I’m just looking for a season opinion,
am I Interpreting all this information correctly?
November 7th, 2009 at 11:28 PM
Tom,
I think, if we were to go back to 2005 and earlier when inventory was a little more stable, 700 listings was more or less normal for this market. At that level, we would have expected to see some modest upward pressure, but not too serious. I expect that we may very well hit that number before the year has ended but theoretically, we should see demand declining as well, and inventory can start to climb fairly quickly in the new year. Personally, I wouldn’t let the fear of price increases rush you before you feel ready. Even those who are typically most bullish are predicting very modest price growth next year. Of course, interest rates continue to be attractive and it may be worth trying to get in on that while they’re low, but it’s important to purchase with future rate increases and affordability in mind.
November 9th, 2009 at 2:04 PM
Hi, Norm:
I prefer to purchase a duplex in lakeview area but it seems there is nothing in the market, except for more expensive single house or cheaper condo. What is the price most recently traded? thanks
November 9th, 2009 at 6:53 PM
Hi Yuan,
Over the past few months, one side has been fetching $205,000 to $225,000. Three full semi-detached properties have sold ranging from $395,000 to $437,000.
November 10th, 2009 at 12:57 PM
City takes green step
Mandatory recycling plan coming soon, officials say
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/technology/City+takes+green+step+mandatory+recycling+plan+coming+soon+officials/2204901/story.html
The City of Saskatoon is planning a city-wide green bin recycling program in an effort to curb a looming garbage crisis and divert household organic waste from the landfill, officials say. “If we don’t take some significant action in the short term, we’ve only got 12 years of landfill life left and we know we can make the most significant impact with organics.” What exactly will be collected and how much the program will cost homeowners is still being worked out, said Ryan O’Grady, the city official in charge of the organics program.
In actuality, it’s probably less than 12 years based on the city’s current growth. It would be great to see a combination green/blue box recycling program. But kudos to the city for finally getting something like this started!
November 10th, 2009 at 3:45 PM
Yay to that, Jason. I was kind of surprised nothing of the kind existed when we moved here (over two years now), and we’ve been paying for it privately since then.
In other news: Saskatchewan likely facing recession by end of fiscal year: finance minister: http://bit.ly/3mueQE
“REGINA — Saskatchewan’s economy will shrink in 2009 and the province will likely be in recession by the time the year is over, Finance Minister Rod Gantefoer said Tuesday.
Gantefoer chalked up the government’s financial woes solely to potash, which he said is at the lowest volume of sales since 1972.
The government’s spring budget projected 20 per cent of its revenues coming from potash. But in its first-quarter financial report in August, it downgraded those revenue projections by an unprecedented $1.3 billion. The current figure of just over $600 million will be revised even farther downward next week. Going down as well will be the government’s economic growth projection for the province, which began at 2.1 per cent in the budget and was downgraded to 0.6 per cent at first quarter.”
November 10th, 2009 at 4:58 PM
Jen, yes, we’re so close to Sarcan/recycling centres that we’ve just been using those, although we’d certainly welcome fewer trips with a combined ‘blue’/'green’ setup.
So, it’s official: Saskatchewan is in a recession, and there isn’t going to be much (if any?) of a budget surplus. Or any real growth. Not any surprise, really; the worldwide recession was bound to eventually impact here, and a few of us have been cautioning about assuming past commodity revenues and royalties would continue to apply in future years/budgets.
November 10th, 2009 at 5:06 PM
Oh surprise, surprise SK is headed for recession. It was inevitable, especially with the Russians getting all the potash deals.
Peter, “You cynics can be damned. Saskatchewan is still a safe-haven.” Are those gonna be your famous last words?
November 10th, 2009 at 6:32 PM
Steven, we now have all the potash we could ever want.
November 10th, 2009 at 7:24 PM
It was’nt so long ago that everybody, sorry many people thought that resources were going to save us like they were the wholy grail or something. Why did they ever think that is the question. Resources have always been very undependable when their expectation is to provide sustained broad economic growth. However recently resources have been viewed as money in the bank, and further some seem to think that when the global economy improves Saskatchewan will lead the charge, wrong again! Now houses in this province are viewed to be vulnerable to higher interest rates, however a stalled provincial economy may cool buying before rates rise. As far as I know all the mega building plans have been canned and all our boom created was a bunch of houses and apartment conversions. You could almost smell what was about to happen with Brad Wall running around to places like Ontario with recruitment ideas. I wonder if he has any more trips planned in the near future. Watch for the housing market to crater big time, and the only way Saskatchewan will boom again is if their is a subprime equivalent bubble, real or artificial. Short of that Saskatchewan will return to where it came from, out migration and a stalled housing sector. It’s enevitable.
November 10th, 2009 at 8:15 PM
Aww, I miss sarcastic Rick.
Yes, I’ll certainly agree that the government projecting large amounts of provincial revenue based in commodities without taking global demand destruction into account was more than a bit “short-sighted”, shall we say. To take your point a bit further, it’s not taking it as “money in the bank” that’s the issue, it’s taking it as *future* money in the bank and spending it today that’s the problem. I’m not as pessimistic as you on several points, though: there’s much more foreign investment in Canada and our commodities now vs. the 1990′s, and this is helping lift the CAD vs. the USD. While this isn’t so good for provinces based in manufacturing, we should at least continue to do comparatively well. Foreign investors have plowed billions into the Canadian markets since the credit crunch, and year-to-date, have added nearly $70 billion of Canadian securities to their portfolios. There’s also been a large amount of growth and development in the Asian economies (which were much less affected by the financial mess) and they will need commodities to continue to develop. This is not to say that we won’t need to be competitive in pricing those commodities or that the government can rest on it’s laurels in terms of marketing them, of course. The unemployment rate in SK continues to be the lowest in the country, and given the rather huge unemployment rates in places like southern Ontario, I think it makes sense to bring people here to help them find work. You also make a point about housing and interest rates, but don’t forget that this is going to be an issue everywhere. It may in fact be much more of an issue in places where housing prices zoomed past prior highs based purely on low interest rates, creating insane bidding wars regardless of the local economy. To my knowledge not much of that has happened here.
November 11th, 2009 at 10:33 AM
The cyclical nature of resources and manufacturing for that matter is not news to anyone as far as I know.
However, not everything is gloom and doom. For example, as recently as yesterday: Globe and Mail November 10, 2009. “Saskatchewan oil play gains momentum.” Saskatchewan is mentionned as a current “world class play.”
By the way, potash will not be down forever. And, after all, it helped pay off 40% of the provincial debt last year.
November 11th, 2009 at 6:13 PM
“However, not everything is gloom and doom. For example, as recently as yesterday: Globe and Mail November 10, 2009. “Saskatchewan oil play gains momentum.” Saskatchewan is mentionned as a current “world class play.””
Well if the Globe and Mail said it….It must be true… I think that if you asked some oil people in Southern Sask. and the Lloydminster area, they wouldn’t be beating their chests too hard at that comment. I deal with retailers in both those areas and there is some long faces around there.
While it’s true that “some” of Asia has not been nearly as impacted as we have been, hello China…..other areas have been. Japan is still in a world of hurt and doesnt look like it will come out of that soon due to staggering increases in labour costs. Quality electronics…the stuff from Japan, not the crap from China has been going up in price with 2010 product and the same goes with motorcycles.
Although I’m sure I’ll be called a doom and gloomer, my 28 years in business management of which 16 were in finance…and have gone through a couple of these recessions, there HAS to be an economic “cleansing” after a period over indulgence like we’ve had for the last few years. Gov’t bailouts delay the inevitable and commodities rise and fall in cycles and can not be counted on for sustainability.
Do I like whats going on? No. My income has dropped 30k this year.
Do I believe this has to happen? Yes. It’s the only way to get back to core financial fundamentals. I feel bad for those who bought with minimum downpayments and qualified only because rates are so low. Where will they live in 3-5 years when rates are back to historic norms…. A lot of lemmings will be wondering what happened.
Norm, It wasn’t my intent to disrespect your board with comments on recent real estate purchases. Not everyone is in the situation I described.
November 11th, 2009 at 9:05 PM
Westcan
“Gov’t bailouts delay the inevitable and commodities rise and fall in cycles and can not be counted on for sustainability.”
You are right on all points. However, what can western economies really compete on other than resources? It’s the only area where our high labour costs are not a limiting factor. Manufacturing and technology are great but the only places we can compete are in niche markets. As soon as technology becomes main-stream, someone figures out a way to ‘optimize’ the process and ship those jobs offshore.
In general, I would not count resources out. Our unemployment numbers are proof enough of that. Even the bears on this board have pointed out that Australia has started raising interest rates. This is due to the strength of Australia’s resource-based economy.
There will come a time where the resource boom will crash to a horrible end but this isn’t it and it is quite likely it will happen when the economies of the world reach the end limits of their government stimulus spending. In that event we’re all screwed anyway.
November 12th, 2009 at 8:12 AM
Westcan,
No offense taken. I am one of many who are somewhat concerned that some Canadians have buried themselves in debt which they’re just barely able to service at the current low rates.
Human nature is a funny thing. One would hope that when rates fall we would be inclined to take on a home at a substantially lower cost. Instead, what seems to happen is that people take the opportunity to buy more house at the same cost. It works today, but you have to wonder about the fall out in three to five years time.