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Saskatoon real estate week in review: February 8-12 2010

February seems to have led us into a spring groove with sales and listing activity that appear quite normal, and avoid the extreme highs or lows that have been typical of our market for some time. Certainly, inventory is tight in some price ranges but demand is not unusually robust as it had been during the last two quarters of 2009, at least if you are willing to make that call based on actual sales. Month to date, Saskatoon real estate agents have reported 130 firm sales to our MLS putting us on track to beat last February’s sales of 211, roughly half way to the five year average of 266 properties (with two of four weeks sales reported), and softer than the recent boom years of 2007 and 2008 when sales came in at 321 and 365 respectively for the month of February.

In spite of sales activity that appears “normal” many REALTORS seem to feel that the market is about to explode. They’re busy working with clients and inquiries are up. TeamFisher’s list of active home buyers is also larger than normal, and the level of motivation seems to be strong, but not stupid. They’d like to buy a home but they’re not likely to feel the need to get wrapped up in a bidding war. That seems to be the sentiment of most active buyers.

Other anecdotal evidence suggests interest in Saskatoon real estate continues to be strong. Page views on our site’s listing tool are increasing weekly at a remarkable rate. I’m guessing that we’ll record 80,000 page views in that section alone through the month. If I’m right, we’ll have more than doubled some of our busier months in 2009 and overall traffic will have increased by fifty percent, year over year. Still, a real estate market is not made up of eyeballs and mouse clicks and I would have expected to see more of a connection between “interest” and actual unit sales. The fact that interest is high and sales are “normal” could be an indication that the cautiousness displayed by our own clients is more or less characteristic of the buyer market in general. Only time will tell, so on with the show.

Saskatoon real estate agents reported at total of sixty-four house and condos being firmly sold this week, a gain of four units over the previous week, and up just as much from the same week in 2009.

New listings continued to come on stream at a slow pace with just ninety-eight properties being introduced on the Saskatoon multiple listings service, down three units from last week, and off from 118 for the same period last year.

The inventory of active residential listings inched up again moving to 766 properties to record a gain of seventeen homes week-over-week. Just a few years ago, this would have felt like a lot of inventory. Today, it feels like not quite enough, even with the present level of demand. It’s amazing to me how quickly the inventory numbers can change the feel of the market. At this time in 2008, we were scraping the bottom of the barrel, desperate to find good homes. Just months later we wondered what we would do with the excessive inventory. With another year behind us, agents are once again complaining that there isn’t much to sell.

Today, we have a total of 413 single-family homes and 307 condos. That’s a slight improvement from last week when there were 411 and 290 respectively. Last year at this time inventory came in at 737 houses and 395 condominiums.

Cancelled and withdrawn listings came in at nineteen for the week. Thirteen of those did an immediate about face to re-enter the system marked as a new listing, most at a new price. Additionally, seventeen price adjustments were processed with all but two headed in a downward direction.

Sale prices managed to find higher ground by all three measures. The weekly average cracked $300K for the first time this year to finish at $303,372 and gain nearly $24,000 over last week. The six-week average picked up seven thousand dollars over the previous week and finished just shy of $280,000; nearly two thousand dollars lower than it was at this time in 2009. A higher percentage of upper end purchases pushed the four-week median up over sixteen thousand dollars from last week to $276,250 for a gain of seventeen thousand dollars from the same week last year.

Click the image for a larger version of the graph.

The number of overbid sales decreased from eight to six this week. It’s worth noting that four of the six over list sales were new townhouse condos that may well have been sold with additional improvements, adding costs that were not reflected in the asking price. The average overbid was higher than the previous week at $6,238. Fifty-one of sixty-four Saskatoon home sellers engaged their buyer in a negotiation, which on average came in at $8,405 below the asking price. The average discount of about 2.7% is down for the second week and falling on the low side of what’s become normal (3 to 3.3%), perhaps an indication that sellers have a little more clout at the bargaining table.

Highlights from a very busy news week

As U.S. struggles, Canada worries about a housing bubble
January housing starts rise to 15-month high in Canada
Competition watchdog says realtor rules limit choice
CREA forecasts record home market this year
Five warning signs of a bubble
House prices to hit record (Canada)
MLS challenge could change the way houses are sold
RBC goes below prime
City housing starts increase (Saskatoon)
Saskatchewan resale housing market to cool in 2010: CREA
Dodge warns on Canadian housing market
Ottawa weighs stricter mortgage rules
Realtors eye MLS changes
Easier MLS access could affect market
CREA’s response to “lower commission” speculation

A map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate areas is here.
An overview of data collection and calculation practices for our statistical reports is here.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call or email.

Real estate geeks can follow our daily updates on Twitter @norm_fisher.

Our Saskatoon home search tool offers MLS listings represented by all real estate brands, presented with more detail than you’ll find anywhere else. Check it out here.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate