There is a false market in Saskatoon and elsewhere in the province. High home prices but mediocre jobs and pay. Homes will be cheaper in the next year that is true but the cost of lending will be higher which really hurts. Our home is smaller and to me they go for more money per square ft. High energy prices are to blame for this.

We are somewhat protected from the USA style fiasco. They gave loans to illegals and not just to people who couldnt afford it. They are in a world of hurt ( I see it first hand) Our prices reflect the trade and economies of commodities and some mfg exports. There are lots of variables.

AHEM…i wonder if the SP will print it..

And… here we… go!

Real estate collapse? Bring it on!

http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/features/usaid/story.html?id=560c333a-a888-4d19-aa14-d4b5108c208f

http://money.cnn.com/2008/08/29/real_estate/sellers_concessions_in_buyers_market/index.htm

priced out last couple of years? don’t worry, the tables are turning. This is coming in about 2 years.

If you want or need to buy a new home? Make sure it is completely finished, (landscaping, deck, fence, driveway, sidewalk, basement walls insulated and drywalled is finished otherwise I wouldn’t even look at the property). Make sure it has a new home warranty and offer at least %15 less than listing. Because within a year, it will drop more than 10-15% and if you are stretched with affordability, you won’t be able to tap the home equity like years past and finish the house.

I suspect many people won’t do this and we will see in the next few years in Stonebridge and Willowgrove as well that have gravel driveways, no fence, no deck, not much for landscaping cause they have no equity to tap. Many will be house poor. Some specs who can’t sell won’t even cut the weeds.

Sucks to be the guys trying to cover the $339,000 cost of a townhouse, especially when initially they tried it at $375! but hilarious they list their “Lakewood” Pawylchenko Lane place as “Briarwood” and really, what were they thinking? $339 to buy a townhouse in Lakewood? Those things were $120 new, 4 years ago. At some point, sellers like that are going to have to accept a loss. Especially, as you point out, others bought for far less. So their competition, who bought at $120 is more than happy to sell for $300.

Selling of for a loss is a demoralizer. Will drop prices, their friends are all going to get very bearish on offers. Kind of a domino effect.

I admire your kindness….

Im not out to screw her out of anything. We rose together and she will receive 50% of assets fair and square – for my own peace of mind if nothing else. Life happens. Learn and move on but dont carry bitterness as it hurts only you. I am happier now than I was two years ago and she is realizing that she did not make a very wise choice.

Apart from being unethical (which matters to me) I dont think your scheme would work anyway. House was bought together so both names are on the title. If I tried to sell for 5k to a friend or family member, she would have the right to match the offer, pay ME out MY half at that price, and keep the whole thing.

Check with your lawyer to see if you could sell the house for next to nothing to family or to your best friend. Then you can give your wife half of 5000 dollars and your friend could keep the house in his name for 1 year naming it as his/her primary residence. After 1 year your friend sells the home tax free sure it will cost you closing costs and stuff on both transactions but would be a good way to screw over your wife.

I like the front line real person stories even more than the analyst reports and statistics.

At my work in Saskatoon there’s a few first time buyers with no interest in buying at these levels, and it seems as though the Sask hype is wearing off. We’re all making vague references to moving out of province (or even country) if this doesn’t correct heavy soon.

And still I hear other friends talking of building and flipping houses!

Its a nice place this city, but a little isolated and behind the times.

I mostly look forward to a housing/credit crash so all those jackasses in their fuel-guzzling pick up trucks (never hauling a damn thing), have the beasts repossessed.

Very good point about not worrying about prices if you are a homeowner. I suppose to some people it’s a bit of a shot to their ego if they just bought because now they could have boughten a bit cheaper but if they were satisfied when they bought they should try to keep that mode of thinking and remain satisfied and not try to compare themselves with other people (sometimes easier said than done).

I guess the other group of people worried other than investors/flippers are the people caught in between houses and from the sounds of it there is lots of it happening. I was just talking to a friend of mine in Regina yesterday morning. His coworker bought a place earlier this year and tried to flip it immediately for an extra 100k. The price kept coming down and now every other condo on his floor is for sale asking around the same price he bought his for. Ouch

If you search bc,alberta and toronto housing blogs and some of these are from realtors, you can see a definate mind-set change as we have all peaked and now people are realizing that this was all a dreamworld.

I am not a bitter renter but have a vested interest in the market as I work in new construction in Calgary and It has gotten ugly and I mean ugly. You are not hearing about the massive layoffs in residential construction because it is being absorbed by people switching to commercial or industrial building. But with high inventory and credit tightning new projects will be put on hold. Construction is a huge driver of alberta and when all this goes down alot of investment will disappear. Contrary to the belief that alberta is oil, I say for the last 3 years it has been in construction.

I saw this 1 year ago and realized that this insane housing vs wage imbalance could not be kept up. I started looking at the U.S. and their past history as a guide and came to the conclusion that speculation was driving prices and when the large money pulls out of a market it corrects back to wages. Sort of interesting that when calgary started correcting saskatoon took off and now saskatoon is correcting newfoundland is taking off. Curious it almost seems like it is massed investmnet money manipulating markets by huge capital and pulling out to another market en-mass. Just a pure speculation

If you are thinking of selling just a little advice use a baseline 3.5*wages = mean housing price. If you are selling for more sell it but put the price atleast 10% less than others in the area to create a quick sale. pocket the money you made in an investment greater than inflation and wait. If you are planning to move up sell your property first. I know people who are stuck with 2 mortgages out here and they are in trouble.

Pleae do not blame the realtor’s. They have a job to do and that is to sell,period. It’s damn hard, I imagine to tell someone their house is priced in the clouds. this strikes directly at ones ego and self worth and a large part of the financial wealth of a homeowner. I would hate to have that job in the downturn. Knowing your forced to price an asset that will never sell and being blamed is a hard pill.

Just a rant, check out the past in Calgary, and the U.S. and wake up.

On paper I’m lucky; my ‘asset’ has more than doubled in value. Problem with that is if I want to keep it I have to buy it again but this time at inflated bubble values.

My wife walked out on me and the kids but her actions don’t matter and I still have to split the house with her.

Even with only one salary in the household I could still afford to buy her out IF prices hadn’t gone insane the last two years. Now if she’s gonna take a buyout she wants peak price or at least 90% of it. And if I won’t pay that then she figures I should sell. Don’t really want to do that because this is the kids HOME and there are enough other changes to deal with that I don’t want to add one more big one into the mix but what are my options?

So as a homeowner I would be happier if things had continued historically and this was valued closer to the $200000 that it should be at instead of almost double that. But I know I’m unique. I’m sort of a homeowner AND a home buyer.

Armoth,

It’s just perceived value. The same thing went on during the “boom” when everyone was ECSTATIC about their property gaining value. You’re right, it shouldn’t really concern homeowners, only first time home buyers and speculators.

As a homeowner I can honestly say I dont care if home prices dropped 20-30% I wouldnt give a rats ass. Dont know why everyone is so worked up if you say they are. Only people it matters too are people trying to make a quick buck flipping or som1 trying to buy a house and the latter I hope it works out for them cause I was in their shoes once as well. But if you are talking about most of the population we dont sell our houses every year moving to and fro you buy a house and you live in it for a long time then you die. I hope I cleared up the fear for you.

” Accepting all offers to at least payout existing mortgage ($339,000). Moving to a bigger house so can’t afford 2 mortgage payments.”

Listed at $345 now(was previously 379, then 355 … now appears as “new” listing at 339). Problem is the similar nice town houses around are low 300′s – almost identical neighbour for 309, and the cheaper models are 230 to 250.

Perhaps not so easy to say when it’s your money.

There is much more to life than money, however….

Someone could lose only that much if they bought from the peak and not many did so more like an average %25 to %30 for most buyers and lets face it saskatoon is not New York or L.A where losing %50 could be millions or even tens of millions.

The most someone will lose here is $150,000 and will get it back if they stay for 5 years or more. Or they could just hand in their keys and lose their downpayment in any respect not a huge deal when compared to other cities losses Saskatoon or Saskatchewan is a joke.

I think part of the problem is that many people seem to define “X city and area” a bit differently. For example, when defining “Saskatoon and area”, some people will include Area 6 and some will not. This will give you different numbers of active listings. We also have to remember there are listings “active” that are not on MLS, for whatever reason.

I think however we define it, listings seem to be “historically” high. I’m not sure about this, though. I’d like to get access to the data (listings vs. sales) farther back, perhaps to the early 80′s/last big recession, and see how now compares to then. Adjusted for population, if # of listings were lower, similar, or much higher, we may have a better idea what to expect.

How this ultimately plays out will depend on many factors, some of which many of us may not have seen or imagined yet. Let’s all hope for a positive “black swan”… I could sure use one.

Saskatoon = 1,885 for Saskatoon and area

Edmonton = 9,925 for Edmonton and area (5.26 times)

Calgary = 10736 for Calgary and area (5.7 times)

So… both greater cities, with just over 5 times the population have just over 5 times the MLS listings of greater Saskatoon.

Aren’t they supposed to have some kind of huge inventory surplus?

Check it out yourselves, go to realtor.ca, search Saskatoon, Calgary and Edmonton. They have almost the same listings per person as we do!! And those 2 markets are experiencing on going price declines and every one admits they’re in a down turn. Well, apparently we’ve just equalled Edmonton/Calgary in surplus inventory and stagnant demand.

Regina only has 1,281 listings, 68% of Saskatoon’s listings with almost 90% of its population.

If the economy ever joins the housing market in going down hill, Alberta owes nothing, Saskatchewan still has a few billion in debt.

Interesting read it seems like they have more aggressive bloggers on that site =o) Should be interesting the next few months but I think out of all the provinces I would rather be in Saskatchewan for this downturn. We are like a penny stock poised for explosive growth and if house prices decline abit and the median wage goes up 10k I think it would be good for every1 around.

Those are sure some interesting stats….. Definitely turning into a buyers market for sure.

On a posotive note, the province will be booming for a long time due to our resources so it will be interesting to see what prices will do in the next few years.

ps- Wesco, I won’t be at the big game Sunday, cheer hard for the Riders!! I will be at 4 other regular season games this year though.

GO RIDERS!!

Resale home listings hit record high

http://www.reportonbusiness.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080829.wmls0829/BNStory/Business/home

Sask specific items:

Listing surged the most percentage-wise in Saskatchewan (up 42.5 per cent), Manitoba (up 31 per cent), and British Columbia (up 21.1 per cent).

The average home price declined by 2.4 per cent year-over-year in July to $302,298. Prices fell the most in the Northwest Territories, albeit on a relatively small base, down by 26.7 per cent to $272,779. Prices also declined in the Yukon (down 9.6 per cent), Alberta (down 5.2 per cent), the Prairie provinces (down 0.9 per cent), and British Columbia (down 0.4 per cent).

Prices rose the most in Saskatchewan (up 29.9 per cent), Newfoundland (up 18.7 per cent), and Manitoba (up 13.5 per cent).