Saskatoon residential MLS listings reach highest point this year
For the first time this year, active MLS® listings of condominiums and single-family homes within the city of Saskatoon broke the 300 mark. Since late December, we’ve been hovering between 236 and 292 active listings. At the close of business today there are 312 listings showing an active status. An “active” listing is one which has not yet been reported as having a firm offer is place, so properties which have not attracted offers as well as those which have been “conditionally sold” are counted among them.
Is this a big deal? Most buyers and sellers aren’t likely to feel much of a change when they’re out there doing business. You can continue to expect to find competitive bidding on homes which are priced realistically. However, it is encouraging to know that active listings are now about thirty percent higher than they were at the lowest point. Over the past two weeks there have been more new listings than there were homes sold. I wouldn’t expect to see prices come down anytime soon but as we make our way towards 400 Saskatoon homes for sale, and hopefully we’ll continue to move in this direction, we might expect to see the pace of increases slow.
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate
4 comments so far. We'd love to hear your thoughts.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:32 AM
Norm – I chuckled a little bit while reading this post. Here in Phoenix, we have just under 53,000 active listings in our MLS. I have to admit, I’m a little jealous of your situation, having to deal with just a few hundred listings. I originally started my real estate career in a small town in Northern Idaho, which was much more similar to your market. I then returned to Phoenix (my home town) and now deal with the MLS numbers that I mentioned above. Sometimes I miss the simpler days.
I will be curious to see if the slight increase in your inventory levels continues or if it’s just an anomoly and your market stays on the super-heated path that you’ve been on for a while now.
-Steve Nicks
April 7th, 2009 at 9:32 AM
Wow! Those numbers are hard to grasp. I can imagine that those inventory levels present a whole other set of challenges. It’s probably a little tougher to get buyers to “finish looking.” They must always be thinking that something better may exist just around the corner.
I think the heat is far from coming off of this market. Normal inventory levels would be closer to 600-800 listings. With the increased demand, we may need to see 1,000 properties on the market before there is any real balance.
Thanks for stopping.
April 7th, 2009 at 9:33 AM
I have no idea why Phoenix based agents seem to be congregating here…
Norm, when we met in your fine city, it was apparent that it was significantly smaller than the Phoenix metro area. But I never did get around to asking what the population of Saskatoon was.
Yeah, I know I could look it up in less time than it took me to post this, but it’s been awhile since I stopped by (though I read everything via my feed reader).
So haw many live in and around Saskatoon? 200K?
April 7th, 2009 at 9:33 AM
Hi Jay, there must be some desire to try to relive the days when homes ran off the market as fast as you could list them. Jonathon Dalton used the word “nostalgia.”
Yes, you’re pretty much bang on as far as Saskatoon’s population goes. The City estimates about 207,000. We are small enough that we could be hard to find if we were hidden inside of Phoenix.
Nice to see you.