Residential sales continued to fall lower on an annual basis for the eighth consecutive week as Saskatoon real estate agents reported just 56 firm sales to the MLS® system, up from 50 last week, but down from 81 when compared to the same week last year. As the month of March draws to a close, the multiple listing service® shows just 234 sales in our city for the month. There were 310 sales last March.

Fortunately, new listing activity was also quite weak, perhaps an indication that a shortened work week was the primary culprit for both softer sales and listings. Local REALTORS® ushered 130 Saskatoon homes onto the system, down from 152 last week and way below the 200 properties that entered the system over the same period last year.

Even before month-end expired listings would draw MLS® inventory lower, the total number of homes for sale in Saskatoon took a very small dip falling to 1676 this morning, three fewer than we had a week ago, and down from 1854 a year earlier. The majority of the decline can be seen in the single-family housing category which fell from 999 at the close of the same week last year to 898 today. Condo inventory has also slipped lower to a lesser degree. Today there are 682 Saskatoon condos for sale, down 23 units from a year ago.

Sales activity above the $500,000 mark continued to show some weakness this week but one sale that approached the $900,000 mark helped nudge the average sale price of a Saskatoon home higher to $323,736 even as the weekly median price took a small dip to $320,000. Meanwhile, both of our longer-term price measures inched higher. The six-week average grew by roughly $800 from a week earlier to hit $324,466 for an annual decline of $17,000. The four-week median price moved to $317,500 after stalling at $310,000 for three consecutive weeks. It’s up about three thousand dollars from a year ago.

Once again, we see just one overbid sale this week. That deal netted the seller a $100 bonus. On the other hand, 54 of this week’s sales went for less than the asking price with an average discount of $11,692.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that those sales that do show a sale price that is greater than the list price are all new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. We report these to you as “at list price sales”, which is likely too generous in some cases, but it’s simply not practical to obtain the full details of each 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

Saskatoon real estate sales activity fell lower on both a weekly and annual basis for this period. Local REALTORS® reported 50 firm residential trades for a decline of eight when compared to last week, which was well down from the 72 Saskatoon homes that sold during the same week last year.

New listing activity slipped lower by just one property compared to the previous week as 152 homes were offered for sale on the multiple listing service®, down from 162 for the same period of 2017.

The total number of Saskatoon homes listed for sale on the MLS® gained some ground reaching 1679 properties by today. That’s up 28 from last Saturday morning. At the close if this week last year there were 1864 homes showing an active status on the MLS. This is the fourth consecutive week during which active listings are at their lowest point for the end of March since 2014 when inventory began to grow significantly. A closer look at the major housing categories shows 900 single-family homes, up from 879 last week, and down from 988 a year ago. Condo inventory is now at 690, up ten listing from a week ago, and down 34 on an annual basis.

The weekly median sale price inched slightly higher ($1,250) to $321,250. With just three homes reported to have sold above $500,000 the average sale price for the week tumbled more than $30,000 to just $317,740. The four-week median price held steady at $310,000 for the third week in a row even as it came in shy of the number recorded a year earlier by nearly 20K. The six-week average price fell just over four thousand dollars from a week ago to finish this period at $323,680 for a year-over-year decline of roughly fifteen thousand dollars.

Only one seller managed to close a deal above asking price, and with a fairly modest overbid of just $100. Meanwhile, 46 of this week’s 50 sales reported a sale below the listed price with an average discount of $11,632 which is more than four thousand dollars lower that it was the week before.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that those sales that do show a sale price that is greater than the list price are all new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. We report these to you as “at list price sales”, which is likely too generous in some cases, but it’s simply not practical to obtain the full details of each 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

The number of Saskatoon homes that traded through the multiple listing service® inched higher this week to 58, a gain of five from the previous period. At the same time, total units sales fell short of numbers recorded last year for the sixth consecutive week. Saskatoon real estate agents reported 69 firm home sales over the same period of time in 2017.

Sales may be down, but new listings have fallen considerably more, now trailing the previous year’s numbers for the eleventh week in a row. Local agents added 153 Saskatoon homes to the MLS® system this week, down two from the previous week. That’s 23 fewer properties than were offered up during the same week last year.

The database of active residential listings available to Saskatoon home buyers continued to grow, as it reliably does from one week to the next at this time of year. By the week’s end there were 1651 residential properties for sale on our multiple listing service within Saskatoon city limits, up 40 from a week earlier, and well below the 1837 homes that were for sale a year ago. This is the third consecutive week in which listing inventory has fallen below 2015 levels. In other words, this is the smallest selection of homes that have been available at this time of year in four years. A closer look at the major housing categories shows 879 single-family homes for sale in Saskatoon, a gain of 15 from the previous period, and 79 fewer than were for sale a year ago. Condominium inventory is now at 680, up 20 from last week, and down 37 from levels seen at this time last year.

Strengthened activity at the upper end of the Saskatoon real estate market, including the first local home sale to top the million dollar mark this year, pushed the weekly average sale price higher to $351,650. A decent showing of home buyers purchasing above the $350,000 mark also brought the weekly median price higher to $320,000. Still, the six-week average sale price found a new low for the 2018 year at $328,014. That’s down about 15K from a year earlier. The four-week median price is also at its lowest levels of the 2018 year, even though it matched last week’s number of $310,000. That price measure is down sixteen thousand dollars from where it was a year ago.

A little springtime home buyer enthusiasm was apparent this week, particularly in area two where three homes sold for more than the list price, bringing the total number of overbid sales to four. That’s the most we’ve seen during any given week for many months. That said, overbids were fairly small, averaging just $600 with one of the three homes taking the lion’s share of that seller bonus ($2,100). Meanwhile, 45 Saskatoon homes were reported to have sold for less than the asking price netting those buyers a tidy discount of $16,002.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that those sales that do show a sale price that is greater than the list price are all new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. We report these to you as “at list price sales”, which is likely too generous in some cases, but it’s simply not practical to obtain the full details of each 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

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), released national sales statistics for the month of February 2018 today.

According to the report, "Home sales via Canadian MLS® Systems were down 6.5% in February. This marks the second consecutive monthly decline following the record set in December 2017 and the lowest reading in nearly five years...The drop off in sales activity following the record-breaking peak late last year confirms that many homebuyers moved purchase decisions forward late last year before tighter mortgage rules took effect in January,” said Gregory Klump, CREA’s Chief Economist.”

Highlights of CREA's report

• National home sales declined by 6.5% from January to February.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was down 16.9% year-over-year (y-o-y) in February.
• The number of newly listed homes recovered by 8.1% from January to February.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) in February was up 6.9% y-o-y.

• The national average sale price declined by 5% y-o-y in February.

Read the entire report on Canadian MLS® sales for February of 2018.

CREA's most recent Resale Housing Market Forcast, also released today 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

Saskatoon real estate sales continued at what seems like a seasonally appropriate pace as local agents reported 52 firm residential sales to the MLS® system, down four from last week, and down by one compared to the same week a year ago.

The new listing activity came in at 155 to fall behind the previous week’s number by just two units and falling short of new listings for the same week last year by 11. This was the 18th consecutive week during which new listings fell below levels recorded the previous year so there seems to be a clear trend developing here.

The number of Saskatoon homes listed for sale on the multiple listing service® saw its largest weekly increase of the year as inventory grew by 55 to reach 1611. Still, that number is down 172 units (10%) from where it stood a year ago. It’s the second week in which active listings numbers fell below the 2015 line on our chart, meaning we’re at a three year low for this particular week. Available single-family homes are at 864 today, down from 937 a year ago. Condo inventory is at 660 this morning, down from 694 last year.

Pretty solid activity at the entry-level price ranges and a poor showing of sales above $500,000 ushered both the weekly average price and the weekly median price lower to $312,051 and $297,500 respectively. The six-week average price fell about nine thousand dollars from last week’s close to settle at $329,034 which is its lowest point since November of last year and nearly 14K lower than it was a year ago. The four-week median price edged lower dropping two thousand dollars from last week to $310,000. That is also a low point since November of last year, and also down 14K annually.

One lucky Saskatoon home seller saw some bidding activity that led to an above list price sale with just a small bonus of $100 being offered by the buyer. Meanwhile, 44 of the week’s sales closed at a price that was below the seller’s asking price by an average of $11,835.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that those sales that do show a sale price that is greater than the list price are all new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. We report these to you as “at list price sales”, which is likely too generous in some cases, but it’s simply not practical to obtain the full details of each sale.

Note: The highlighted sale was being marketed by a builder with a suggested house plan. It ended up trading to another builder as a vacant lot. I have dealt with that sale as if the list price matched the sale price to avoid a $10,000 skewing of the average discount for Area 1.

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

Local REALTORS® reported a total of 56 firm residential trades within the city of Saskatoon, an increase of five from the previous week, but well below the 75 sales reported over the same week of last year. There have been a number of up weeks, and a handful of down weeks so far this year. As February closed, and wiped out most of the year-to-date sales gains that were recorded in January, we found ourselves roughly on par with sales generated over the first two months of 2017.

New listing activity, which had been declining over the past six weeks, took a big jump forward. Saskatoon real estate agents brought 156 Saskatoon homes to the MLS® database this past week, up from 106 last week. That said, this was the ninth consecutive week in which new listings fell on an annual basis, this week rather substantially. By the close of the same week in 2017, the multiple listing service® of Saskatoon had added 234 properties.

The total number of active listings for sale on the MLS® shrank this week to 1556, down 17 properties from last week’s close, for an annual decline of 188. That brings inventory to its lowest point for this particular week in four years. While we have many weeks of potential seasonal growth ahead of us, weekly gains have been unusually small so far in 2018. We opened the year with 1469 active listings so we are up fewer than 100 Saskatoon homes since the new year got underway. There are currently 827 single-family homes for sale in Saskatoon, down 70 from a year earlier. Condominium inventory is now at 650, down from 690 a year ago.

A strong measure of entry-level home sales kept the weekly median sales price of a Saskatoon home low at just $310,000 this week, even as the average price took some modest gains and grew to $320,873. The four-week median price tumbled lower by nearly 15K this week to settle at just $312,000. That represents an annual drop of fourteen thousand dollars. Meanwhile, the six-week average price inched higher, growing by less than a thousand dollars from last week to $338,163 and taking an annual loss of nearly six thousand dollars.

All but one Saskatoon home seller took an offer that was below their asking price. Those deals generated an average discount of $11,893. That’s well down from the unusually large average discount of $16,102 that we saw the previous week.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that those sales that do show a sale price that is greater than the list price are all new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. We report these to you as “at list price sales”, which is likely too generous in some cases, but it’s simply not practical to obtain the full details of each 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

A media release from the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® with an overview of residential MLS® sales and listing activity for the month of February of 2018 follows.

A year-over-year drop in new listings contributed to a declining availability of homes in the Saskatoon market in February. At the end of last month, there was a total of 1,588 active residential listings in Saskatoon. This represented a four percent decline from a year ago when there were 1,659 properties available.

By the end of February, REALTORS® had listed a total of 1,139 residential properties for the year, a 14 percent decline compared to 1,332 listings that had been added to the system by this point in 2017.

“For the past couple of years inventory levels have hovered around 2,000 available properties,” comments Jason Yochim, CEO of the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® (SRAR). “It is definitely a positive trend to see inventory levels shrinking. This is helpful for slowing price declines,” he adds. 

Although the number of sale transactions in February (211), was down six percent from the same month last year, strong sales in January kept year-to-date sales one percent ahead of last year. Year-to-date, a total of 413 residential sales have been recorded on the MLS® in Saskatoon. The overall dollar volume for home sales in Saskatoon was just under $70 million which is down six percent from last February. The year-to-date dollar volume of transactions is unchanged from last year at $139 million.

So far this year, sales in the region surrounding Saskatoon, which includes the cities of Warman and Martensville, totaled 122 units representing, a 14 percent increase from last year. The total dollar volume for this area was just under $39.5 million for the first two months of the year, an increase of 12 percent compared to last year.

The average sale price for a home in Saskatoon slipped one percent in February. The Home Price Index (HPI) composite benchmark value declined just slightly in the last 30 days to $292,800. Although this is its lowest point since February of 2012, the decline in the composite price appears to be slowing. With the exception of a couple of months in the spring of last year, the HPI composite value has been in an overall decline since August of 2016 when the value was $317,600.

For further information, please contact:

Jason Yochim CAE, CRAE

Chief Executive Officer

Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS®