I first signed up to use this “social media” tool a little more than a year ago. I think I gave it a fair shot (96 tweets and a lot of listening) but it just doesn’t seem to work for me. I’m not that comfortable sharing the minor details of my life with others.

On the other hand, I am kinda crazy about sharing real estate stuff with those who are into it. If you’re into that, and you’re into Twitter, well, you might want to check out my Twitter stream here.

You probably won’t find out where I am, or what I had for dinner, but if you were checkin’ it out you’d know how many Saskatoon homes sold today, and what the average selling price was. You’d know that a property sold above a million bucks yesterday, and that another one picked up a sold sign today at just shy of a million. Heck, you’d even already know the average selling price of a Saskatoon home for March 2009.

So, hit me up on Twitter, won't ya?

I’m over here, by myself, at the moment. ☺

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.

Follow our daily updates on Twitter @Norm_Fisher.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

Forty-six single-family homes and eighteen condominiums pushed unit sales to sixty-four this week, up from fifty-eight last week but still well below the ninety-four homes that sold during the same week last year.  Six additional sales in the duplex and semi-detached categories pushed total residential unit sales in Saskatoon to seventy and produced the second highest sales week this year giving some sellers and agents hope that a spring market might be lurking somewhere around the corner.

New listings of houses and condos fell to just one hundred and thirteen properties, down twenty from last week, and well below the one hundred and sixty-four units that were offered for sale during the last week of March 2008. In spite of stronger sales and weaker listing activity, total residential listings managed to continue to grow, gaining twenty-nine units over last Friday’s close to finish at 1,422 including eight hundred and seventy-seven houses and four hundred and fifty-nine condos.

Sixty-five sellers adjusted their asking price using an old fashioned “price reduction” while another seventeen introduced a new price point by canceling and re-listing their home.

Prices gained some steam over the previous week in all three of our pricing measures, but year-over-year price drops became a little more pronounced as we finished our second week of “down from last year” stats. The average selling price of Saskatoon houses and condos came in about $15,000 higher than last week at $275,978. The six-week average picked up just a few hundred dollars to finish at $268,575, down from $281,070 for the same week last year. The four-week median gained $5,500 over the previous week but fell short of last year’s number by more than $10,000.

It came as a surprise to nobody that the vast majority of sellers who managed to bag a deal gave up some dollars off of their asking price to make a sale go. The average underbid grew slightly to $11,907, up from $11,363 last week. Calculated as a percentage of list price the average discount was nearly identical to last week at 4.2%. For the most part, our underbid chart looks a lot like last week’s with about sixty-four percent of sales completing within $10,000 of the asking price. The larger discount categories did manage to steal a point here and there pushing the percentage of sales closed with a discount greater than $20,000 to eleven percent, slightly more than double last week’s number.

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.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

Since the subprime mortgage meltdown in the United States, Canadian leaders have assured the public that a similar tidal wave of foreclosures can't hit here. They have cited the prudence and market dominance of Canada's five most prominent banks, the conservatism of Canadian consumers and the tiny, 7-per-cent market share of subprime lenders, which is much lower than their 22-per-cent market share in the United States. Just four days ago in a speech, Prime Minister Harper said: “We have avoided the extreme of the unregulated, or barely regulated, financial and mortgage industries that has caused such grief around the world.”

However, The Globe's investigation shows that while Canada's real estate sector hasn't suffered as much as its counterpart in the United States, the Prime Minister and others have grossly underestimated the impact of that small portion of subprime lenders. Until recently, companies who touted their low standards with slogans such as “We Say Yes When The Banks Say No!” and “No Income Verification” proliferated here.

Read the Globe and Mail story 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.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

On a year-to-date basis (January and February), housing starts are down 50% across Canada. Saskatchewan leads the provinces showing the largest decline, off 74% with just 152 starts this year compared to 578 for the same period in 2008.

Saskatoon’s year-to-date housing starts sit at 57 units, a decline of 85% over the same period last year. Kelowna was the only Canadian city to post a larger drop with starts falling 96%, year-over-year, from 735 last year to just 28 this year.

Paul Caton, CMHC senior market analyst told the Saskatoon Star Phoenix that new home construction is off to a slow start this year as developers work to finish and sell the houses they began building in 2008.

CMHC’s Preliminary Housing Start Data is here. The Star Phoenix story 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.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

You might call it hype. You might call it a “glimmer of hope” in a pretty tough time. I’d call it a home run for

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wallwho managed to pique

It started as a story titled, “Saskatchewan: Thousands of jobs open if you don’t mind the moose” and it quickly became “the most viewed and second most emailed story on the media giant’s website” according to Star Phoenix writer Cassandra Kyle in her story from today’s newspaper. Check the CNN story here. Cassandra Kyle’s coverage 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.

Norm Fisher Royal LePage Vidorra

The Saskatoon Region Association of Realtors recently reported February results for the entire residential category of Saskatoon real estate, which includes single-family homes, condominiums, semi-detached properties, duplexes, mobile homes and vacant lots. Unit sales totaled 211 properties across all of these property types, and an average sale price of $281,681. Let’s have a look at how houses (single-family detached homes) and condominiums did in comparison to the entire residential category.

After leveling off in January, active listing inventories took an upward turn through the month as February. The stock of available single-family homes (detached houses) grew to 761 units by month’s end, up about 10 percent from January, and sharply higher compared to February 2008 when a dismal 204 Saskatoon houses were offered for sale. Condo inventory took a similar turn growing to 412 units, up from 363 last month. At the close of February last year just 127 condominiums were available on the Saskatoon MLS system.

Following a remarkably strong month for single-family home sales in January, unit sales weakened some in February sliding to 147 units, down from 164 the month before, and off 45 units (-25%) compared to the same month last year. Condominium sales showed an increase of thirteen units over the previous month, but fell substantially on a year-over-year basis to just 53 units, down from 147 units (-64%) during the same month last year.

In spite of weaker sales volumes, single-family homes saw a month-over-month price bounce using all four value measures during the month of February. The average sale price for the month was sharply higher for the second consecutive month rising from $293,073 in January to $305,130 in February but gained just $1,500 compared to the same month last year. The median sale price inched up to $280,000 from $277,450 the month before, but lost some ground over February of 2008 when it reached $287,000. The three-month average increased $1,500 over the previous month, and finished roughly $4,000 ahead of last February’s number of $288,677.

The average price per square foot that buyers paid for single-homes also edged up but the gain over the previous month was smaller (2.5%) than the gain in the average sale price (4%). The cost per square foot increased just one-dollar in area one, compared to 8-dollars in area two, while it fell in areas three through five. Heavier volume on Saskatoon’s east side was enough to push the city wide average to $252 per square foot, up six-dollars from the previous month, and down just one-dollar compared to the same month last year.

Given that the demand for Saskatoon condos was off by 64% on a year-over-year basis you may have expected that prices would have taken a serious hit. Instead, they actually appear to have experienced some real gains on a month-over-month basis. The average sale price increased nearly $6,000 from $220,408 to $226,148, and finished nearly $16,000 higher compared to February of 2008 when the average price of a condo was just $209,507. I will point out that the average size of the condos that sold was also substantially higher at 1,014 square feet this year, compared to just 865 square feet last year. That is distorting the year-over-year numbers. The median price slid to $212,500 from $219,500 the month before, but again, it finished sharply higher than the $192,900 median recorded in February of last year. Note that last year the median price experienced one of those more extreme movements on the graph, due mostly to the size of the homes that sold.

Average price per square foot numbers probably paint a slightly more accurate picture of Saskatoon condo prices. Again, they saw a rather impressive bump from $213 in January to $223 in February, but finished down on a year-over-year basis falling twenty-one dollars from $242 last year. Areas two and three saw large gains while area one remained stable. Area four failed to record a single condo sale for the eighth consecutive month. I’m predicting a fairly serious dip in the purple line on that graph if we ever do sell another. ☺

See a Google map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports

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.

Norm Fisher Royal LePage Vidorra

The Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® (SRAR) has released February’s statistics for the residential real estate category along with the following information for the media.

When measured against the last two years, which were anomalies, the Saskatoon real estate market has softened. When measured against activity over the last five years, market activity is on par and ahead of sales figures from 2004, 2005 and 2006. Home prices have increased considerably during this time. As a result of the significant swings in prices, demand, and speculation, the greatest challenge facing sellers is to adjust their expectations in this changed market place.

The residential home sale market performed as forecasted in February. Unit sales are expected to soften during the first half of 2009. Demand for property in the month of February remained steady. REALTORS® sold 211 residential units, down 42% from the same month last year when 365 properties were sold. Year to date unit sale numbers are ahead of 2005 and 2006 sales figures.

Year to date, REALTORS® have sold $118,569,000 worth of real estate, down 32% from 2008 when $173,8957,000 had sold. The average selling price remained steady for the month at $281,681, up 7% from 2008 when the average was $263,444. The average selling price was influenced by 25 sales above $400,000. The average price indicates that sales activity focused on the mid to higher price ranges.

Residential inventories remained above average with home buyers having 1,313 properties to select from at the end of the month. Inventory numbers are up 256% from 2008 when 369 homes were available for purchase. Expectations are that it will take the better part of the year for this inventory to move through the market.

Residential sales trends in surrounding areas were on par with city activity. Unit sales softened with 44 properties selling last month, down 56% from the 100 units sold during the same month last year. The average selling price remained steady at $257,465, up 19% from 2008 when it reached $217,012.

Please drop back before the weekend for a peek at our “Closer look at the Saskatoon real estate statistics” which will analyze sales activity in the single-family home and condominium categories for the month of February.

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.

Norm Fisher Royal LePage Vidorra