Canadians from coast to coast saw a higher percentage of their income going towards housing costs in the second quarter of 2010, largely driven by an increase in house prices and mortgage interest rates when compared against the first quarter. This marks the fourth consecutive time that RBC’s “Housing Affordability Measure” rose. According to the Housing Trends and Affordability report released by RBC Economicsthis morning, the increases have managed to consume roughly half of the improvements experienced in late 2008 and early 2009 when house prices in most areas of Canada cooled significantly.

The deterioration in affordability was seen across the country with the worst of it experienced in Ontario and British Columbia with the remaining provinces seeing “minor erosion.” Only Saskatchewan and Manitoba experienced some improvements, though they were limited to townhomes in the former and condominiums in the latter.

In Saskatchewan

“While home resale activity in Saskatchewan has been on a declining trend in recent months, home prices have held up to a large extent. In the second quarter, prices either appreciated moderately or edged lower just marginally, depending on the housing type. With mortgage rates rising during the quarter, affordability generally eroded some more in the province. RBC Housing Affordability Measures moved up between 0.6 and 1.5 percentage points (townhouses bucked the trend, edging lower by 0.1 percentage points). These increases pushed levels further above long-term averages, thereby indicating that some tensions may be building in the provincial market. Nonetheless, we expect that a strong rebound in the provincial economy this year and next will likely help ease such tensions.”

Read the entire 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

I’m pleased to tell you that the TeamFisher blog has scored a major home run with Michael Derbowka’s agreement to author the occasional post for us.

As a specialist in real estate law, Mike understands the ins and outs of the real estate transaction. His writing and practical insights will be a great resource for Saskatoon home buyers and sellers who frequent our blog.

Born and raised in Prince Albert, Mike earned a Bachelor of Arts Degree majoring in Sociology through the University of Saskatchewan in 2000. He later graduated from the College of Law and joined Cuelenaere and Company in 2006 after articling with them. In early 2010, Mike became a partner at the firm. In addition to real estate, Mike’s areas of expertise include wills and estates and corporations.

I look forward to Mike’s contributions. Please join me in welcoming him.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

Homes can be sold under almost any market conditions but when demand is low and supply is high things get tougher for home sellers. As I write this article, the active inventory of residential MLS listings in Saskatoon sits at 1,364 properties. Based on five-year averages, buyers can expect to see roughly 488 new MLS listings come to the market in the next thirty days. Looking to the same measure of historical data, about 270 Saskatoon homes will sell during that time. No matter how you slice it, the vast majority of the homes that are currently offered for sale will still be for sale a month from now.

So, what is a quick sale is vital for you? What if you don’t have time to wait it out? What can realistically be done to increase your odds of selling over the next thirty days? Frankly, there are just a few things that you and your agent can actually control but those things are all important factors in capturing a buyer’s interest and closing a sale. The three areas where you and your agent have full control are presentation, promotion and price.

Presentation Part 1

In a crowded real estate market homes that don’t show well, or those that are in poor repair are a very tough sell. It’s just too easy for a buyer to pass. They have every bit of confidence that something better will come available soon. Unless your home has some unique quality for which there is a reasonable level of demand you must be prepared to put in some elbow grease, or spend a few bucks to properly prepare it for sale. Alternatively, you can make up for those shortcomings with a lower price. You’ll likely need to price the home so the buyer can see a clear net gain of equity as a result of doing the work. Here’s what the math needs to look like to interest buyers in most of these cases - Purchase price + cost of repairs = a clearly below market price.

Even homes that are in good repair can benefit from some basic pre-sale preparation and some staging. Improving the condition of your home is one way of adding value to make your offering more attractive to prospective buyers.

Our home preparation list and our preparing for a successful photo shoot articleboth have some basic suggestions for improving presentation.

Presentation Part 2

The old cliché, “You never get a second chance to make a good first impression” couldn’t be more accurate.

Several studies indicate that almost all buyers begin their home search online. They use the Internet to qualify properties for onsite viewings and eliminate those that they don’t care to see. Today’s online tools allow buyers to quickly favorite or trash homes while they browse. Once your home is eliminated from the list it’s very difficult to recapture a buyers attention.

Web appeal is the new curb appeal. Your home must show as well online as it will when the buyer visits in person and fortunately for you; the bar is generally set fairly low. It’s not that difficult to look better than the competition. An average house, presented well, can have more web appeal than a great house that is presented poorly.

Presenting your home in the best possible light with professional quality images and attractive written descriptions will play an important role in your success or failure as a seller. Improving the online presentation of your home could increase inquiries and showings resulting in a faster sale.

Promotion

Now that your home is looking good, you need to ensure that potential buyers can easily find it and the Internet is clearly where buyers for your home are looking. Some people feel that Canada’s leading real estate website, realtor.ca can adequately expose a property to the market. You definitely want to be there but here’s the big catch – according to HitWise, realtor.ca reaches fewer than one in three home buyers. Two of three choose to look at homes elsewhere. If realtor.ca forms the bulk of your online marketing effort you’re actually missing most of the market. Information on your home should to be available at a variety of home search websites to maximize the possibility that buyers will find your home. A robust web-marketing planwill include placement on a number of important websites and an active effort to draw buyers to your property including pay-per-click advertising campaigns and spotlights ads where available.

The wonderful thing about Internet marketing is the ability to track and count visits to your property’s online ads. You can know, without question, that people are seeing your home.

If preparation or promotion are lacking you may be able to make some adjustments in those areas and find success. If your home can be easily found by home buyers and it looks great online, it’s likely failing to sell for another reason.

Price

No amount of preparation or promotion will sell a home that’s clearly priced above market value. If your home presents well and buyers are aware that it’s for sale you have just one option to bring about a faster sale – lower your price to make it more attractive. Generally speaking, the roughly 270 Saskatoon homes that do sell over the next thirty days will be those that appear to offer the best value, in the sole judgment of those who offer to buy them. Remember, buyers have what seems like an endless selection of homes and they’re not feeling much pressure to move quickly. They must see good value to be drawn into a negotiation on almost any home.

Best wishes for a speedy sale!

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

MSN Money just did a feature on the ten most expensive resale housing markets in Canada. It uses average selling prices from across the country for the month of August, 2010. Saskatoon came in at number eight on that list.

Meanwhile, Statistics Canada released some income figuresfrom the tax returns of Canadians and Saskatoon, with a median income of $77,740, recorded the largest year-over-year income gain to enter the top ten list of the highest income earning cities at number nine.

Canada's 10 Most Expensive Housing Markets	Canada's 10 Highest Earning Cities (Median)
Vancouver - $680,782	Calgary - $91,570
Victoria - $471,929	Edmonton - $88,190
Toronto - $410,995	Ottawa - $87,160
Calgary - $385,712	Oshawa - $83,220
Edmonton - $326,550	Guelph - $81,920
Ottawa - $322,281	Regina - $81,480
Durham Region - $312,692	Greater Sudbury - $79,550
Saskatoon- $305,866	Victoria - $77,810
Hamilton - $299,812	Saskatoon - $77,740
Kitchener-Waterloo - $263,496	Kitchener-Waterloo - $76,600

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

CREA economist Gregory Klump reports on MLS sales and listings for the Canadian real estate market in August, 2010.

The actual release and some stats graphs can be found 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 August 2010 results for the entire residential category of Saskatoon real estate including single-family homes, condominiums, semi-detached properties, duplexes, mobile homes and vacant lots. Unit sales totaled 313 across all of these property types, a decline of roughly twenty percent compared to the previous Augustwhen 392 residential property sales were completed. The average selling price came in at $305,866 last month, a gain of roughly $22,500 (eight percent) when compared to August of 2009. This post will provide a closer look at how single-family detached homes (houses) and condominiums did in comparison to the entire residential category.

House sales continued to decline, slipping 20 units compared to Julyto settle at 204, roughly twenty-four percent behind last August when 268 Saskatoon houses changed hands. After showing a decline in July, active house listings moved higher again in August gaining 40 listings to finish the month at 773. Last year at this time, single-family inventory sat at 651 so the additional 122 properties produce a gain of nearly nineteen percent over last year. The total months of supply of houses grew to 3.8 months, up .5 months from July, and .4 months ahead of where it was last year at this time.

The average selling price of a Saskatoon house surged higher reaching a near record level of $337,614 to mark a gain of more than $18,000 on the month and finish ten percent higher than it was at the close of the same month last year. The median price jumped even more, moving $21,000 compared to July and $30,000 year-over-year. The three-month average selling price gained nearly $5,000 from last month and finished more than $17,000 higher than it was at this time last year.

I wrote a bit in this postabout a skewing of the average numbers that occurred in August because of a significant decline in the number of sales below the $300,000 mark and a small increase in the number of homes that sold in price ranges above $300,000. I believe that at least some of the gains we’ve seen in this month’s average are artificial (not reflective of actual value changes), caused primarily by a change in what types of houses have been selling. The price per square foot (PPSF) numbers seem to support that. The PPSF of a Saskatoon house fell to $242 from $252 last August. Last month’s PPSF is the lowest recorded for any month this year, and well off of the $270-$275 that it has been running at since April. Some of the decline can be explained by the fact that larger homes traded this August (PPSF generally declines as house size increases) but regardless of how you chose to view things, it would be difficult to make a strong argument that prices are actually up ten percent when the PPSF is down by nearly as much. It simply doesn’t add up.

Saskatoon condo sales also took a slide falling to 95 units from 113 the month before, and 112 in August of last year. As demand softened, the supply of active condominium listing available through the multiple listing service edged up 26 units to finish the month at 489, roughly twenty-four percent higher than it was at the same time last year when condo inventory had fallen to 381. The total months of supply based on recent sales took a huge leap gaining a whole month compared to July and 1.7 months compared with the close of August 2009. It currently sits at 5.1 months, its highest point since March of 2009when it reached 7 months.

Following a five percent slide in the average selling price of a Saskatoon condo through July, prices bounced back a bit as the average gained nearly $2,500 over the previous month to close August at $241,440 and record a year-over-year gain of about $9,500. The median price climbed $11,000 over the month to hit $234,000 and finish $9,000 higher than it was at this time last year. The three-month average remained solid at $244,236, up $22,000 from the close of August 2009.

The average PPSF paid for a Saskatoon condo grew by just two dollars over the month to finish August at $235 and record a gain of about seven percent compared to this time last year when it was at $219. The gain is somewhat smaller than we see in the three-month average selling price, which has grown by ten percent in the same period. Unlike single-family homes, which saw a substantial change in the size of the product that traded, the average size of the condos that sold in August were pretty comparable to last year at 1,025 square feet.

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

We’ve done some cool things over the years to set our listings apart from the competition. None have been quite as exciting to me as this custom-made yard sign that is now offered as part of our full-service marketing plan.

Compared to past efforts we’ve made to capture and pique the interest of potential buyers who are driving or walking by our listings, this idea is beautifully simple. The signs are eye catching and they immediately provide answers to a few basic and common questions. Best of all, the buyer doesn’t have to take any action to get the information. They just have to stop and look. That’s exactly what’s happening. If they want more, a custom web address utilizing the home's address provides an easy second step to learn more about the home.

I wish I could take credit for the idea but I was first introduced to the “custom yard sign” by this post on the Bloodhound Blog a few years ago. I’ve always wanted to do it but it was easy to put off. Coming up with a great design for a sign turned out to be a very tough project. My thanks to the people at Reach Communicationsfor taking that task off of my hands and producing a professional looking piece when they helped us develop our brand strategy.

In the end, it’s obvious to me that the custom yard sign is a natural for our team. We’ve put a significant amount of effort into learning how to make a home look its best in pictures. These custom signs provide an opportunity to leverage those skills in another way for the benefit of our selling clients.

Interested in learning more about our seller services? It’s all right here(large pdf file may be slow to load).

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

I had the opportunity to help a few clients purchase a home who had the interpretation they would not be able to enter the housing market for another year. These clients had solid credit, good job stability but they lacked one of the most common first time buyer requirements, a down payment.

In these, like all cases, we explored every option available for a down payment ranging from grants, HBP (RRSP Home Buyers Plan),  a gift from family, borrowed funds (Line of Credit, etc.) but none were feasible for clients.

This left us with one option which only a couple banks offer, a “Lender Cash Back”. This specific program covers the 5% down payment which is paid from the bank and they also covered an additional .5% to help with closing costs or to help increase the clients minimal savings. As with anything today, this is not free. The bank increases your interest rate in order to make back the down payment over 5 years. Today you can get a 5 year fixed rate at 3.65%.  With this program you get the posted rate which today is 5.39%.

So in all cases the bank makes back the full down payment and you end up paying less towards your principle (along with higher monthly payments) due to the higher interest rate. In some scenarios it can get you into a home sooner than expected but I encourage clients to explore all other options before settling for a Lender Cash Back.

The mortgage you choose should always suit your needs, this is just another option available in the market today that not all are aware of. Please feel free to comment or call me at 306-260-9918 to ask any questions you may have.

Have a great weekend.

Riel Syrenne
The Mortgage Group

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) released their 3^rdquarter Canadian housing forecast this morning. With hundreds of billions of dollars riding on insured mortgages, nobody will claim that CMHC doesn’t have a fair bit of skin in the real estate market and is not exactly an unbiased source. Just the same, they have a significant voice with the national media and there's little doubt this report will be all over the news today.

Nationally…

…Sales of existing homes through the Multiple Listing Service® (MLS®) strengthened steadily through 2009 and remained strong for the first half of 2010. For the remainder of 2010, MLS® sales will decline and will stabilize at more sustainable levels in 2011. Overall, 463,800 sales are expected in 2010, followed by 456,000 in 2011.

//

The average MLS® price is expected to edge lower in the third quarter of 2010 with modest growth resuming thereafter as balanced market conditions curtail the upward pressure on house prices. For 2010, the average MLS® price will be $338,900 while 2011 will see a slight increase to $342,200.

Provincially…

…The slower pace of price increases, coupled with historically low mortgage rates, improved affordability and stimulated housing demand in the first half of 2010.The strong gains in the first half of the year will be offset by a moderation in existing home sales in the second half as mortgage rates rise and pent-up demand is exhausted. Accordingly, resales in 2010 are expected to dip below last year’s annual level before advancing in 2011 on the strength of an improved labour market and increased demand supported by migration patterns.

Existing home prices in Saskatchewan will rise modestly through the balance of the year and going into 2011, reflecting balanced market conditions. Active listings have moved higher and this will ensure price growth remains modest over the forecast period. Accordingly, the average MLS® price will increase to $239,250 in 2010 and to $246,200 the following year.

So there you have it. Even as bubble talkcontinues to capture the interest of the national media, CMHC chimes in to predict a stable market through 2011.

Read CMHC’s Housing Market Outlook, Canadian Edition is here.

The Saskatoon version of this report should be out in a few days. I will add a link to this post.

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