RSS

“The future is written for Riversdale” and at least one Saskatoon business leader sees better times ahead.


Curtis Olson, of Shift Development Inc. recently purchased the old Joe’s Cycle Building at 220 20th Street West. When renovations are complete the building will become his company’s head office and a business hub for other “forward thinking businesses” who see a brighter future for an area that has seen its share of social challenges over the years.


Olson told the Star Phoenix, "I have spent a lot of time in Riversdale. I've kept a very close eye on that neighborhood and Caswell Hill. In my mind, the future of those two neighborhoods has already been determined because I know the demographic of people buying houses and moving into these areas and it is a very progressive, very urban-focused demographic of people moving in.”


Read the Star Phoenix 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

Read

Saskatoon real estate week in review: May 24-28 2010

A short week brought declines in both listings and sales to the Saskatoon real estate market. Local agents reported just seventy-three firm house and condo sales this week, a decline of nine from the previous week and well off of the one hundred and thirteen sales reported for the same week last year. With just one more business day for our MLS® in May it appears likely that unit sales will fall below those generated last May.


So far this month we have 328 home sales compared to 369 for the same month last year. New listings of Saskatoon homes tumbled further dropping nearly a third of last week’s volume to just one hundred and nine, down from one hundred and twenty-seven for the same period in 2009.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph.


Still, active residential real estate listings managed to move higher for the seventeenth consecutive week to break the fourteen hundred mark for the first time since the week of June 22-26 2009. Total active listings continue to close the gap on last year’s numbers but still remain slightly lower than the 1502 homes Saskatoon home buyers had to chose from at the same time last year.


The current condominium inventory moved ahead of last year’s numbers finishing the week at 503 units, a gain of just three compared to the same week in 2009, but higher just the same. As of this morning, there are 822 detached houses for sale, down roughly ten percent from the same week last year when 910 of them showed an active status on the Saskatoon MLS® system.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph. Cancelled and withdrawn listings declined from last week with just thirty-two homes showing activity in those categories. Twenty-three of those returned to the MLS® on the very same day with their “days on the market” reset to zero. Sixty-three MLS® listings adopted a new pricing strategy this week. Properties priced below the average took an unusually high share of activity this week and pushed the average price of a Saskatoon home lower by more than fifteen thousand dollars compared to last week to just $279,533, its lowest point since the week of March 1-5.


The six-week average continued to form a downward curve as it dropped twenty-four hundred dollars from last week to $296,432. That measure still sits about fifteen thousand dollars higher than it was for the same week a year ago. The four-week median was up an equal amount on a year-over-year basis, but showed a drop of four thousand from last week and finished at $285,000.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph. Overbidding was not a popular approach this week as just three home sellers managed a deal above their asking price, and those that did settled for fairly small bonuses averaging just $183. An additional six sellers accepted an offer at full list price while sixty-four of the seventy-three sales reported this week came in below asking by an average of $7,237, or an average percentage discount of 2.5.


Click the image for a larger version of the chart.

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.

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 Vidorra

Read

A plan to extend 25th Street from 1st Avenue North to Idylwyld Drive will move forward despite a doubling of costs since plans for the project were first approved by city council a year ago. On Monday, council approved a $17 million dollar budget paving the way for work to begin. Utility work will start this summer with road construction following next year. The work should be completed in 2013.


Changes should facilitate a smoother flow of traffic between the Central Business District, City Park,  and the Caswell Hill areas. It should also reduce the number of trains that presently travel through the areas to the switching yards that would move out of the downtown area as a result of the plan.


City OKs street extension


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

Read

I’ve just read “Assessing Vulnerabilities in the Canadian Housing Market,” a five-page report written by CIBC economist Benjamin Tal and released on May 25. If you’re looking for some reassurances that the bottom isn’t about to fall out of the Canadian housing market, you may appreciate Tal’s assessment.


Mr. Tal clearly feels that Canadian housing is overvalued but he doesn’t think there is an unmanageable affordability problem in Canada.


First, Tal believes that “at least 1.5 million houses in Canada are overvalued” and his research indicates that prices on those properties are inflated by as much as 14%. Provincially, British Columbia is the worst with an over valuation of 20.7% and Alberta is the least inflated at 8.6%. Saskatchewan fits neatly between the two at 13.2%, just below the national average.


Tal goes on to say that the market is showing clear signs of cooling and that price growth has “rapidly decelerated” over the past few months. He goes on to suggest that absent a “trigger” to a violent correction, prices will not necessarily crash. According to Tal, rising rates will not be the trigger some believe it to be. He speculates that rates will climb slowly and that most Canadians will be able to manage the costs associated with those changes.


According to Tal and CIBC’s affordability index, which is based on actual transactions as opposed to “synthetic mortgage” assumptions, we can afford it. On average, Canadians are using just 15.6% of their income to make mortgage payments. “Manitoba and Saskatchewan still enjoy the best home ownership affordability in the nation” with just less than 12% of income being used on to service mortgage debt.


The report concludes by saying, “While higher interest rates will clearly erode affordability, our detailed look at the distribution of mortgage payments as a share of income does not reveal major pockets of vulnerability. Accordingly, the most likely scenario is that higher interest rates will lead to a modest decline in prices (probably in the magnitude of 5%-10%) in the coming year or two. But given relatively modest rate hikes and the current balanced affordability position, the more significant adjustment will be in housing market fundamentals that are likely to catch up with prices in the coming years—paving the way for a healthier housing market by mid decade.”


What do you think? Read to full report 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.


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 Vidorra

Read

Following what Mayor Don Atchison described as “the most due diligence that the city has done on any land sale,” an agreement was struck with Lake Placid Developments to purchase “Parcel Y” at River Landing in Saskatoon's Central Business District for a price of $5,240,494 yesterday.


Star Phoenix writer David Hutton is reporting that “City council, sitting as an executive committee, made the decision in private Tuesday afternoon to advertise the land sale before it was announced at the evening council meeting. The sale still requires the blessing of city council on June 14 because the purchase is for less than market value.”


Recent appraisals on the land suggested a market value of approximately $11 million. Lake Placid had previously purchased the land for $4.8 million but lost it to the city when they failed to meet payment deadlines in October of last year.


On March 22 of this year, Lake Placid CEO Michael Lobsinger appeared before council indicating that he had formed a partnership with Dr. Karim Nasser and that financing had been secured to complete the $200 million dollar River Landing Village previously approved by council.


In mid-April, council agreed to enter into negotiations with Lake Placid subject to an independent audit to ensure that adequate financing was in place to complete the project.


Council will formally vote to approve the sale at the June 14 council meeting after hearing from anyone who might be opposed to the sale. Lobsinger indicates that he’s “ready to move dirt in June or July” and believes that the project can be completed in 36-months.


Read more from David Hutton's report 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

Read


Housing affordability in Canada deteriorated for the third consecutive quarter and is likely to erode further over the next 12 to 18 months, despite changes in conditions which point to more balanced real estate markets, according to the RBC Housing Trends and Affordability study released today. Anticipated interest rate hikes are expected to increase the cost of ownership in the months ahead, even as the heat comes off of real estate markets, but RBCbelieves that job creation and income gains “should partially mitigate” the effect of rising rates and keep affordability levels below previous peaks.


Regionally, the greatest erosion in housing affordability occurred in Saskatchewan and Manitoba.


Owning a home in Saskatchewan took a bigger chunk of household budgets in the first quarter. This more than reversed a small decline in the last three months of 2009. RBC affordability measures rose between 0.9 and 1.6 percentage points, representing some of the stronger increases in the country (although trailing far behind British Columbia). After flattening or declining marginally in previous quarters, housing prices picked up notably in the province in the first few months of this year; however, with sales slowing and the number of homes available for sale growing more recently, further price increases are unlikely to be as hefty in the near term. Despite the deterioration in the first quarter, affordability measures remain well off the peak levels of early 2008 – which were also the all-time highs in Saskatchewan.


Read the full report 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 Vidorra

Read

Saskatoon real estate week in review: May 17-21 2010

Saskatoon real estate agents reported a total of eighty-two sales of detached houses and condominiums to the local MLS system this week, a drop of just three from last week, and on par with the same week in 2009. For the month, residential sales are pretty much even with last year. To date, 253 properties have been reported sold compared to 255 by this time last year.


New listings of detached houses and condos continued to show some real strength picking up four units from last week to finish at 157, a gain of nineteen homes when compared with the same week last year.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph.


Active listings in the residential category bolted higher to record the largest weekly increase this year. As of this morning, there are 1,376 residential properties showing an active status on the Saskatoon Multiple Listing Service, up seventy-three from last week but still lower than the 1528 which were available at the close of the same week last year when inventory hit its peak for 2009. As the growing inventory is showing no signs of softening I expect that we’ll be talking about year-over-year growth in available listings for the first time since June of 2009 within the next few weeks.


At the same time, sales should begin to soften some as we move into June causing the total “months of inventory” to see some gains and ushering in more favourable conditions for buyers. Sales in June and July of last year were uncharacteristically strong as interest rates fell to historic lows. It’s highly unlikely that those sales numbers are realistic for 2010 so we’ll probably start hearing reports of growing listings and declining sales by the close of June.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph. Cancelled and withdrawn listings picked up some stream and increased by fourteen from last week to forty-five, though the majority of those (34) were immediately relisted. Price changes jumped higher to eighty-four with the majority moving lower while a small handful of condos at the Silverleaf on Main Street moved higher.


The average selling price of a Saskatoon home inched higher gaining almost three thousand dollars from last week to finish at $294,920. The six-week average slipped just over a thousand dollars on the week to $298,710 and finished higher than the same week last year by twenty-two thousand dollars. The four-week median

bounced higher and gained four thousand dollars on the previous week to reach $289,000, up nineteen thousand dollars year-over-year.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph. Roughly ten percent of Saskatoon home sellers got a little more than they asked with an average overbid of $2,293 while sixty-eight did a deal below the list price at an average discount of 2.5% or $7,403. Click the image for a larger version of the chart.

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 Vidorra

Read


The City ParkCommunity Association hopes to find financial backing that might allow them to purchase and take control of the First Nations University of Canada (FNUC) campus, which will soon be offered for sale due to a financial restructuring that became necessary when federal funding for the university was lost.


Various concerns have been voiced in the community since FNUC announced that the property, which occupies a whole city block between 7th and 8th, and Duke and Duchess, would be offered for sale. Some feel that the eighty-year old building should be saved for its historical significance. Other concerns include a lack of local green space within City Park and the potential for higher levels of traffic on the area’s narrow streets if the property were to attract a condo developer for a high-density housing development, a use that the current zoning doesn’t provide for.


Undoubtedly, the largest concern for the owner of the land will be maximizing return on resale. Apparently, administrators of FNUC have told representatives of the City Park Community Association that they will not be given preferential treatment in the sale, and that the land will be sold to the highest bidder by sealed tender.


It remains to be seen just how much interest the property will generate. The R2 zoningdoesn’t provide for many good options, at least as far as redevelopment is concerned. Some kind of deal with the community may prove to be the best option for FNUC as well.


Related stories

First Nations University loses provincial funding
Ottawa cuts funding to First Nations University
First Nations University of Canada to sell Saskatoon campus
FNUC campus draws interest
FNUC campus sale shows need to preserve past
City Park residents eye FNUC campus


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

Read

From today's Star Phoenix regarding River Landing and Parcel Y in the Central Business Districtof Saskatoon.


The deadline for city council's final decision on whether to sell River Landing's anchor property to Lake Placid Developmentsor open it up to other developers has been pushed back to June.

 


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

Read

Troubled by the sight of weeds growing out of control across the street from his City Park photography business, Imageryowner Milt Taylor set out to solve the problem and at the same time ended up delivering a gift to the community. Five years ago, Taylor planted a small patch of potatoes on the north edge of the property and donated 250 pounds of potatoes to the Saskatoon Food Bank. This year, Taylor and other food bank volunteers plan to sow food crops on the entire three-acre parcel located between 2nd and 3rd on Duchess. They hope to produce as much as 60,000 pounds of food for the agency that provides food hampers to struggling Saskatoon families.


On Monday, city council approved the use of all vacant lots owned by the city for food production by non-profit organizations.


What a terrific way to utilize some of this vacant land. Doing so provides an opportunity to see these parcels cleaned up and to help those in our community who need it most. I hope that we’ll see community associations embrace this idea and work to organize gardening groups who will share the responsibility.


Read “City frees vacant lots for gardens” from the Star Phoenix 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

Read

Saskatoon real estate week in review: May 10-14 2010

The Saskatoon real estate market remained steady this week as agents reported firm sales on eighty-five houses and condominiums, up just two from last week but down by ten homes when compared to the same week last year.


Meanwhile, new listings in the same categories fell back to 153, a drop of ten from the previous week, but ahead the numbers from the same week in 2009 by eighteen.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph.


The inventory of active residential listings on the Saskatoon MLS system pushed higher again this week to break 1,300 units for the first time since July 18, 2009. As of this morning, there were 1,303 residential properties listed for sale, a solid gain of nearly fifty properties compared to last week, but more than 200 fewer than were available at this time last year. The stock of Saskatoon homes includes 453 condos and 782 detached single-family homes. Detached houses have clocked the largest recent gains moving up sixty units in the past couple of weeks. Given the upward momentum that is evident on the active listings graph it seems likely that listings will peak later this year than last. It was the week of May 23 (next week) in 2009 when inventory reached its high point for 2009 with 1528 listings. After that, it fell steadily for the balance of the year. Given the change this year, we may be talking “up over last year” in just a few weeks if the current trend continues.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph. Cancelled and withdrawn listings were softer this week with thirty-one homes being removed from the system. Twenty of those later re-appeared with days on the market reset to zero. A whopping seventy-three price changes were recorded this week, the largest number I can recall for quite some time. All but one brave soul took their price south while the lone holdout raised theirs by more than fifteen percent to take it well above the $500,000 mark, even after nearly thirty days on the market at the lower price. You sir, have guts. We wish you well.


The steady upward trend that we’ve seen in prices over the past several weeks came to an end as the average selling price of a Saskatoon home fell over thirteen thousand dollars from last week to $292,009. Still, the six-week average managed to inch higher stalling just below 300K to gain roughly eight hundred dollars on last week and beating last year’s number by nearly 20K. The four-week median fell one thousand dollars from last week to finish at $285,000 and recorded a gain of $15,000 year-over-year.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph.


Six of eighty-five Saskatoon home sellers managed to bag a deal at an amount greater than their asking price, by $3,515 on average. Once again, the average overbid amount was skewed higher by one deal that showed a five-figure overbid. Seven sellers got their asking price and seventy-two signed an offer below asking by an average of $8,018 or about 2.7% of the list.


Click the image for a larger version of the chart.

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 Vidorra

Read
The Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association (SRA) IDX Reciprocity listings are displayed in accordance with SRA's MLS® Data Access Agreement and are copyright of the Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association (SRA).
The above information is from sources deemed reliable but should not be relied upon without independent verification. The information presented here is for general interest only, no guarantees apply.
Trademarks are owned and controlled by the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA). Used under license.
MLS® System data of the Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association (SRA) displayed on this site is refreshed every 2 hours.