Sales of Saskatoon houses and condos continued at a rather lackluster pace this week as local real estate agents reported just forty-seven sales, up two units from last week, but nearly half the number reported during the same week last year when ninety-two such properties sported a sold sign.
Residential listing activity remained brisk as seventy-four single-family homes and forty-four condominiums were offered for sale on the Saskatoon multiple listing service, down two units from last week, and up nine from the same week in 2008. Total active residential listings gained ground again for the fourth week in a row suggesting confirming that we are now into our spring listing market. At the close of business Friday 1,298 residential listings were showing an active status, up 56 properties from the previous week, and well ahead of the 370 properties available at this time last year when inventories pushed towards record lows and just 204 houses and 127 condos were for sale. Today, take your pick from 785 houses and 429 condominiums.
Thirteen of twenty-six canceled or withdrawn listings made another appearance as a new listing, most offered at a lower price. An additional seventy-four sellers adjusted their asking price in hopes of getting a jump of the competition. Condo sales had a strong week accounting for nearly one in three sales, and pushed the average selling price for the week down sharply from $295,014 last week to $269,628, just fourteen dollars higher than it was for the same week in 2008. The median sale price for the week sank even further and settled at $253,500, down just over $30,000 from $285,000 last week. The six-week average came in at $281,573, down just $2,000 from last week and about $23,000 higher than it was the same week in 2008. The median also fell slightly week-over-week to $263,750 but maintained a gain of $15,500 over the same week last year.
While home buyers definitely weren’t out in droves, those that did buy clearly took it easy on their seller of choice as the average underbid reached its lowest level since the week of August 25-29, and came in below $10,000 for the first time since that same week. The underbid graph presents a picture that we haven’t seen before as a full forty percent of the week’s sales recorded a price within $5,000 of list and an additional thirty-four percent came in between $5,001 and $10,000. The $10,001-$15,000 accounted for 11% of sales compared to 16% last week while the $15,001-$20,000 category picked up a single percentage point and finished at six. The $20,001-$25,000 category more than doubled to nine percent while the underbids which exceeded $25,000 completely fell off of the chart for the first time since I started publishing these stats.
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Norm Fisher Royal LePage Vidorra