The number of homes sold remained stable this week, even as the holidays drew nearer. Saskatoon real estate agents reported 44 firm house and condo sales to the Saskatoon multiple listing service®, two more than were sold the previous week and ten fewer than the total number traded during the same week last year.

The number of new MLS® listings(condos and houses) moved in the same direction slipping to its lowest level for any week this year. Saskatoon real estate agents added 62 listings to the local MLS® this week, down 33 from last week. Once again, new listings were higher than they were during the same week last year (47) as they have been for 19 of the past 21 weeks.

The total inventory of MLS® listings in the residential category shed some numbers and moved lower by 50 units to reach 1158, its lowest level since the week of May 4,but well ahead of totals for this date last year when just 951 Saskatoon homes were offered for sale on the multiple listing service®. The number of single-family homes bearing an active status slipped to 707 from 740 last week while condo inventory remained steady at 351. Last year at this time, Saskatoon home buyers had just 579 houses and 275 condos to choose from.

With only one reported sale over the $500,000 mark both of the weekly measures took a dive. The average sale price of a Saskatoon home slipped to just $316,577 while the weekly median price fell to $325,500. The longer-term measures went in opposite directions as the six-week average slipped lower from the previous week by a little more than four thousand dollars to settle at $342,444 and finished lower than it did for the same week last year by nine thousand dollars. Meanwhile, the four-week median price edged higher by six thousand dollars compared to last week. That wasn’t enough to keep it from falling short of the levels we saw during the same week of 2012 when the four-week median price of a Saskatoon home was fourteen thousand dollars higher.

Overbid sales were non-existent in this week’s sales, to the best of my recollection, for the first time this year. In fact, only two lucky sellers managed to find a buyer willing to pay their asking price. Buyers definitely had the upper hand as 42 of this week’s 44 sales closed at a price that was below the seller’s list price by an average of $8,747.

Other notable MLS® activity this week included 27 cancelled and withdrawn listings, 32 expired listings and just 13 price adjustments.

Highlights from the news this past week

Women the new wildcard in the condo market - Financial Post
Housing market defies expectations with latest CREA figures - Globe and Mail
CMHC draws a line under condo bubble fears - Financial Post
Canadian housing sales show surprising resiliency- Financial Post

Get the most current market intelligence with our FREE Market Snapshot including prices of homes recently sold in your area. Get it here, now.

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 Saskatoon Real Estate

Today on our Facebookpage, we discuss the rapidly growing population of greater Saskatoon and how it's affecting our city and its residents. Let us know how you feel. Get the most current market intelligence with our FREE Market Snapshot including prices of homes recently sold in your area. Get it here, now.

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 Saskatoon Real Estate

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), released national sales statistics for the month of November, 2013 recently. According to the CREA, the average price of a Canadian home rose sharply (9.8 percent) on a year-over-year basis, even as sales remained flat on a monthly basis. Home prices were up in over two-thirds of Canadian markets with supply being the key variable.

Annual price gains were more modest when looking at the MLS® Home Price Index, which is supposed to take more of an "apples to apples" approach. That index shows price rising by 4.1 percent in Canada, and by 3.9 percent here at home in Saskatoon. Highlights of CREA's report    

• National home sales edged 0.1% lower from October to November.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was 5.9% above November 2012 levels.
• The number of newly listed homes rose 1.8% from October to November.
• The Canadian housing market remains in balanced territory.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) rose 4.1% year-over-year in November.

Read the entire report on Canadian MLS® sales for November, 2013.

Get the most current market intelligence with our FREE Market Snapshot including prices of homes recently sold in your area. Get it here, now.

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 Saskatoon Real Estate

Saskatoon real estate sales slipped lower for the fourth consecutive week, as they most often do at this time of the year. Local agents reported just 42 house and condo sales to the MLS® system this week, down three from last week to fall short of sales recorded during the same week last yearby two.

New MLS® listings(condos and houses) also slipped lower falling to 95 from 108 last week. While down from the previous week, new listing numbers were still well up on totals for the same week in 2012 when 72 Saskatoon homes hit the multiple listing service®.

Weakened unit sales and heightened listing activity saw the total inventory of active property listings available on the Saskatoon multiple listing service® increase at a time that declines can pretty much always be counted on. As of this morning, Saskatoon home buyers have 1208 MLS® listings to choose from. That’s up from the close of the previous week by 22 homes and up from this date last year by just over 200 properties. Today, there are 740 single-family homes available compared to just 608 a year ago. Active condo listings sit at 351, up from just 301 at this time in 2012.

A greater amount of activity at the upper end of the Saskatoon real estate market saw the median price paid for a Saskatoon home surge higher by about fifty thousand dollars this week to $365,500. Still, the average selling price for the week was hardly impacted as it moved higher by roughly two thousand dollars to $346,790. The longer term measures were very stable with the six-week average slipping lower by just five hundred dollars to $346,758 to close ahead of where it was at this time last year by just over two thousand dollars. The four-week median was steady for the third week in a row at $319,920 for a year-over-year decline of close to seventeen thousand dollars. Over the past few weeks prices appear to be about where they were in December of last year.

Overbid sales were nearly non-existent at just one. That buyer offered the seller $100 more than their asking price to come away from the process with a deal. Another six buyers made a full price offer to close their purchase while 34 of 41 buyers insisted on a deal and managed to negotiate an average discount of $9,118 before all was said and done.

Other notable MLS® activity this week included 30 cancelled and withdrawn listings, 19 expired listings and 26 price adjustments.

Highlights from the news this past week

Can’t afford Canadian property? Downsize your home, upsize your storage locker - Financial Post
Housing starts dip in November, analysts still see soft landing - Globe and Mail
Risks to Canada’s financial system fall - GlobeAdvisor.com
Why Canadian Realtors are optimistic about the housing market - Financial Post
Is Canada in a housing bubble? Analysts can’t agree? - Globe and Mail
Flaherty regrets massive growth of CMHC, vows mortgage action if needed - Financial Post
Canadian real estate most overvalued in the world, study says - cbc.ca Cost drives city home sales - Star Phoenix
Caught between a housing bubble and deflation risk - Vancouver Sun

Get the most current market intelligence with our FREE Market Snapshot including prices of homes recently sold in your area. Get it here, now.

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 Saskatoon Real Estate

Get the most current market intelligence with our FREE Market Snapshot including prices of homes recently sold in your area. Get it here, now.

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 Saskatoon Real Estate

Today on our Facebookpage, we discuss the recent decision by Saskatoon's city council to hike residential property taxes by 7.43 percent in 2014. The increase will primarily be utilized to pay for street repairs and snow removal. Get the most current market intelligence with our FREE Market Snapshot including prices of homes recently sold in your area. Get it here, now.

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 Saskatoon Real Estate

The Saskatoon Region Association of Realtors® (SRAR) released the MLS® residential real estate statistics for November of 2013today accompanied by the following release.

Please note that many of the association’s comments touch on “year-to-date” numbers, and some are based on all sales within the board’s trading area. The charts which you see, as always, reflect activity within the city of Saskatoon on a month to month basis over the past several years.

There are a few interesting trends to note as we approach the end of 2013. Overall, year-to-date, there is an increase in the number of homes selling above $350,000. However, in the past two months homes sales in this range have fallen when compared against the same period during the previous year. According to Jason Yochim, Executive Officer with the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS®, "The median sale price for homes priced above $400,000 has actually decreased over the past couple of months as we see more inventory, especially in new construction. Also, the spread between list and sell price tends to widen as you move up in prices." The sales to listing ratio, which compares the number of units listed to those sold for the period, is higher in the lower price ranges versus the upper end. This is again due to lower levels of inventory in the lower price range.

“The number of new listings for 2013 is up ten percent over last year, however many of these listings are previously listed properties that failed to sell as a result of being overpriced and have been re-listed at a reduced price in order to bring them closer to market," adds Yochim. Further evidence to support this is a two percent increase in total unit sales (all housing categories and price ranges) compared to 2012. 

The average selling price for the year is up four percent over last year (flat when comparing November to last November) which contributes to the overall sales volume pushing closer to 1.5 billion in Saskatoon.

Overall the market continues to be healthy with a strong demand for homes in the $300,000 to 500,000 price range. The surplus of inventory priced over $500,000 is due to a couple of factors such as unrealistic expectations when pricing as well as over 200 new home builders with product on the market. This does not mean that the "bubble has burst” and the market is falling headlong into a buyers' market, but rather a subtle reminder that although we are in growth mode, the growth and price increases have limitations.

The market will always determine the true value of homes through supply and demand and eventually the pricing must follow suit. "This is just a gentle reminder to sellers that regardless of what they feel their home is worth, they have to respond to what the buyer is telling them and price to market.”

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call of email me.

Get the most current market intelligence with our FREE Market Snapshot including prices of homes recently sold in your area. Get it here, now.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate

Amortizations are falling, rate discounts are increasing and consumers have flocked to fixed rates. Those are a few of the trends found in the Canadian Association for Accredited Mortgage Broker's (CAAMP)  Annual State of the Residential Mortgage Market report. The following highlights were compiled by Canadian Mortgage Trends. Where do you fit in!

• 16% of homes purchased in 2013 had amortizations over 25 years
• 8% of respondents believe the housing bubble will burst within the next five years
• 82% of new mortgages for homes purchased in 2013 were fixed rate mortgages
• 2% of buyers with less than 20% down chose a variable rate mortgage
• 40% of new mortgages in 2013 were obtained from a mortgage broker.
• 70% of households with mortgages have 25% or more equity
• 57% of 2013 homebuyers were first-time buyers
• 84% of mortgages on homes purchased in 2013 had an original amortization of 25 years or less
• 16% of borrowers  increased the amount of their payments in the past year - the average monthly increase was  $400
• 17% of borrowers  made a lump sum payment - the average amount was $14,000

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

• 43% of current mortgage holders  consulted a mortgage broker about getting a new mortgage
• 68% of respondents agreed their mortgages are "good debt"

INTEREST RATES

• 3.23% is the average mortgage interest rate for mortgages on homes purchased in 2013
• 3.20% is the average mortgage interest rate for mortgages renewed in 2013, which averaged 0.82 percentage point lower than prior to their renewal

EQUITY TAKE-OUT

• 11%  of homeowners took equity out of their home in the past year with $57,000 the average amount
• $59 billion is the estimated amount of total equity take-out in the past year
  • $16.6 billion was used for debt consolidation and repayment
  • $15.1 billion was used for investments
  • $12.3 billion was used for home renovations

REAL ESTATE/MORTGAGE MARKET

• 9.52 million: The number of homeowners in Canada
• 4.28 million: The number of renters in Canada
• 5.58 million: The number of homeowners with mortgages (who may also have a home equity line of credit (HELOC))
• 3.94 million: The number of homeowners who are mortgage-free
• 2.3 million: Number of total homeowners who have HELOCs

MORTGAGING ACTIVITY

• 450,000 of households bought homes over the past year
• 400,000 of buyers took on mortgages

MORTGAGE MARKET OUTLOOKThe Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) has revised its outlook to take into account a more buoyant market than expected. National sales have improved more quickly than anticipated. CREA's forecast for national sales activity has been rebalanced with a modest upward revision this year to reflect stronger than expected sales for the year-to-date. Sales are forecast to reach 449,900 units in 2013. In 2014, national activity is forecast to reach to 465,600 units, a rebound of 3.5 per cent, and in line with its 10-year-average. The forecast increase reflects a gradual strengthening of sales activity alongside further economic, job, and income growth combined with only slightly higher mortgage interest rates.

I'm always happy to answer your mortgage and finance related questions. Feel free to call me any time at 306-260-9918 or drop me an email at riel@mortgagegrp.com.

Riel Syrenne

The Mortgage Group