The final week of the year for the Saskatoon real estate market was quiet, as it always is. Local agents reported just 18 firm residential sales, down for 52 last week, but finishing ahead of Christmas week last year by two.

New listings also fell off as just 25 Saskatoon homes were added to the multiple listing service® database, a drop of 50 from the previous week, and down by one compared to the closing week of 2017.

This week marks the bottom of the annual real estate cycle which typically peaks in April, May or June, and then begins a slow and steady decline that finishes here.

Sales

Active MLS® listing inventory fell to its lowest point in a year. As of this morning there are 1498 residential listings showing an active status on the Saskatoon multiple listing service®, down 35 units from a week ago. Looking back to last year, there were 1607 Saskatoon homes available to buyers as the final week of 2017 closed. Today’s totals include 836 single-family homes for an annual drop of 31. Condo listings total 568, which is just two fewer than were available last year at this time.

Active

Prices were off the charts high with four of this week’s 18 sales recording a sale price exceeding $500K. The weekly median price came in at $379,500 and the weekly average was $431,744. The six-week average price grew by close to three thousand dollars from last week and reached $337,439. That’s down from the closing week of 2017 by about twenty-eight hundred dollars. The four-week median price also took some gains, up $8,500 from last week to $328,000. That was enough to claim an annual increase of four thousand dollars.

Price

Two sellers were lucky enough to secure an offer at their asking price. The other 16 gave up some dough to make a deal netting buyers an average discount of $15,0000.

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.

List

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them.

General

As another year for the Saskatoon real estate market draws to a close, I thank you for continuing to show up here to read my work. I wish you and yours the very best that 2019 has to offer.

Thank-you for reading TeamFisher’s Saskatoon Real Estate Week in Review.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Please feel free to call or text me at 306-241-6676 or reach me by email at norm at teamfisher dot com.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

Residential sales saw both a weekly and an annual increase of eight this week as Saskatoon real estate agents reported 52 local trades to the MLS®.

New listings conitnued to fall lower as they always do in the final weeks of the year. A total of 75 Saskatoon homes were added to the system this week, down from 86 the previous week, and below the 87 listings that were added to the system over the same week last year.

Sales

Listing inventory also continued on a slow downward trend. As of this morning, there are 1533 active MLS® listings in the residential category, down 63 units from last week’s close, and lower than it was at the end of the same week last year by 103.

A closer look at the major housing categories shows 570 active condo listings within the city of Saskatoon. That number falls lower than it was a year ago by 57. Today, there are 867 single-family homes for sale now, down just 33 from a year earlier.

Active

The median sale price for the week fell to $297,500 to reach its lowest level in nearly three months as high-end home buyers took a holiday break. With just four sales hitting numbers above $500K the weekly average also took a plunge as it fell to just $310,783. Both of the longer-term measures we track followed suit. The six-week average price dropped six thousand dollars to $334,743 and closed the week down from a year ago by just seven hundred dollars. Meanwhile, the four-week median price lost $5500 from a week earlier. It settled at $319,500 to find itself lower than it was a year ago by $1750.

Price

One seller picked up a solid bonus as buyers bid up the price of their home to close $12,600 higher than the asking price, while 49 of this week’s buyers managed to negotiate a discount averaging $11,577.

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.

List

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them.

General

Wishing a very Merry Christmas to those who celebrate. I hope you all enjoy a peaceful and relaxing holiday.

Thank-you for reading TeamFisher’s Saskatoon Real Estate Week in Review.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Please feel free to call or text me at 306-241-6676 or reach me by email at norm at teamfisher dot com.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), released national sales statistics for November of 2018 this week.

According to the report, "Home sales via Canadian MLS® Systems fell by 2.3% in November 2018, adding to the decline in October of 1.7%. While the number of homes trading hands is still up from its low point in the spring, it remains below monthly levels posted from 2014 through 2017.

"Transactions declined in just over half of all local markets, with lower activity in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), the Greater Vancouver Area (GVA) and Hamilton- Burlington offsetting increased sales in Edmonton."

Highlights of CREA's report

• National home sales fell 2.3% from October to November.
• Actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was down by 12.6% from one year ago.
• The number of newly listed homes declined by 3.3% from October to November.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) was up 2% year-over-year (y-o-y) in November.

• The national average sale price retreated by 2.9% y-o-y in November.

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

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 slipped lower this week as local REALTORS® reported 44 firm residential trades to the MLS®. That is lower than the previous week by seven and falls short of sales for the same period last year by 19.

The number of new listings that were added to the multiple listing service® database fell to 86, down from 109 the previous week. During the same week last year, only 70 Saskatoon homes were listed for sale.

sales

The number of Saskatoon homes available to buyers on the MLS® system fell marginally lower this week to 1596 and made its first sub 1600 finish since mid-March. That’s just seven fewer listings than were available at the close of the previous week. At the end of the same week in 2017 there were 1678 residential properties on the system.

Active

The mix of high-end versus lower end sales was fairly stable compared to the previous week. The median sale price for the week moved marginally lower to $322,000. Meanwhile, the weekly average sale price of a Saskatoon home took a huge bounce to $380,000 due to a single sale at $2.6 million. That is the highest residential sale price ever reported to our MLS® for a Saskatoon home. The closing price tops the previous high sale price within the city by $290,000.

The six-week average sale price edged higher by six thousand dollars compared to the previous week. It came in at $340,439 from an annual increase of roughly fifteen hundred dollars. The four-week median price moved in the opposite direction as it lost four thousand dollars from last week to finish up at $325,000. That’s up two thousand dollars from the close of the same week last year.

Price

Once again, we saw one lonely listing reported to have sold for a price that was greater than the seller’s list price. That sale saw an overbid of $900. Buyers exercised their clout at the negotiating table and managed a discount that averaged more than $22,000 on 41 of the week’s 44 sales. It’s worth noting that the $375,000 discount negotiated on the $2.6 million dollar sale skewed the overall average discount by $8500. If that sale were not in the mix, the average discount would be closer to $14,000.

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.

List

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them.

General

Thank-you for reading TeamFisher’s Saskatoon Real Estate Week in Review.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Please feel free to call or text me at 306-241-6676 or reach me by email at norm at teamfisher dot com.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

Just 16 shopping days until Christmas folks! If you’re celebrating, we hope that you have a good headstart on wrapping up this fun task.

Speaking of wrapping up, we are well into the home stretch for 2018 Saskatoon real estate activity. Just three more weekly reviews after this one before the dust settles and we know what it looks like. The early evidence suggests that we’ll fall short of last year’s unit sale numbers by three to four percent. Last year, 3,518 Saskatoon homes were reported sold through the MLS®. As of the close of business Friday, we were sitting at 3,230.

This past week saw 51 residential sales processed through the multiple listing service®, up two from the week before, but down by 16 sales when compared against the same period last year.

New listings came on pretty strong at 114 for a weekly increase of two dozen homes, up on the same week a year ago by five. It was a big week for failed listings with 138 expiries. That helped to drive new listings higher as those most wanting a sale brought their home back to the system for another go.

For those determined to buy, December is often the month in which seller motivation is highest. The number of home showings a typical seller receives will begin to wane and days of nothingness can soon drive a seller crazy. I’m a guy who’s loathe to ever proclaim, “Now is a great time to buy!” but if I was looking to do so in the next 90-120 days, I’d probably try to take advantage of the more favourable conditions buyers often find in December.

Sales

MLS inventory slipped and reached its lowest point since March, and its four year low point for this particular week. Today, there are 1603 active residential listings on the system, lower than last week’s close by 28, and down by 137 from a year ago. Today’s totals show 896 single-family homes for sale in Saskatoon. That’s down from 968 a year ago. Condo inventory is at 603 today, down about 52 units from 12 months ago.

Actives

As I’ve said many times, prices can and do get all over the map when you’re average sales are so low. The Home Price Index numbers in our recent monthly post are far more reliable, but hey, we do this every week and nothing’s gonna stop us now, right?

So, with that disclaimer in the bag, here’s what the week looked like.

Upper end activity was strong enough to push the weekly median sale price higher by nearly five thousand dollars. It closed the week at $329,900. Still, with very little activity above the $500K mark, the average sale price for the week tumbled lower by close to $40,000 to make a rare appearance below the three hundred thousand dollar mark at $299,900.  The six-week average price fell more than six thousand dollars from a week earlier and settled at $334,274. That’s roughly eleven thousand dollars lower than it was for the same week last year. The four-week median price managed some gains as at grew by about fifteen hundred dollars from last week and reached $328,950 for an annual increase of nearly nine thousand dollars.

Price

For the fourth consecutive week, just one Saskatoon home seller wrapped up an offer above their asking price. In this case, the offer came in at $100 more than they had asked for the home. Meanwhile, 46 of this week’s 51 sales required some give on the seller side. Those buyers saw an average discount of $14,094.

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.

List

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them.

General

Thank-you for reading TeamFisher’s Saskatoon Real Estate Week in Review.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Please feel free to call or text me at 306-241-6676 or reach me by email at norm at teamfisher dot com.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

Saskatoon home sales through the Multiple Listing Service (MLS®) totaled 203 units in November, a 22 percent decline compared to the same month last year. By the end of last month, a total of 3,167 Saskatoon home sales had been recorded year-to-date, down 25% from the highs of 2014, and the lowest year-to-date sales number in ten years. 

New residential MLS® listings have also been declining since 2015 when there were 9,411 Saskatoon homes listed by the end of November. This year, that number sits at 7,646 over the same period, a 12 percent decline from last year and down 19 percent from 2015. Total active residential listings fell to 1716 as November closed, comparable to the five-year average and slightly higher than the 10-year average of 1,388. At the current rate of sales, it would take just over 8 months to liquidate the current active listing inventory. “The months of inventory has been steadily increasing from 3.8 months in November of 2012,” comments Jason Yochim, CEO of the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® (SRAR).

“Even though homes were selling at 96.2% of the asking price in November, it still took two months for the average Saskatoon home to sell,” he added.

The sale to new listing ratio is a useful measure to determine if it is a seller’s market or a buyer’s market. It is considered to be a balanced market when the ratio is at 50 percent (half as many sales as listings). Lower percentages identify a buyer’s market and higher percentages indicate a seller’s market. The sales to listing ratio in Saskatoon for November was 38 percent.

Typically, when discussing home prices, the focus is on the average price. The average can be misleading and is easily skewed. If there are more high-end homes that sell over a defined period, and fewer over another, the two periods can produce substantially different averages even if values are largely stable. For instance, the average sale price in November was $343,361. That’s up from $325,016 in October. No reasonable analysis would suggest that home values are up five percent in a month. The Home Price Index (HPI) provides a better indicator of what is happening with home prices. The HPI tracks value changes over time for well-defined benchmark homes. The value for the benchmark single-family home was at $310,900 in November. The measure has been modestly trending upwards all year, showing rare year-over-year gains over October and November.

“It’s important to remember that even in a buyer’s market sellers can be successful in realizing a sale on their home,” advises Yochim. “The most important step in selling is pricing to the current market conditions.”

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

After a big bounce in residential sale numbers last week the Saskatoon real estate market cooled again. Unit sales fell to just 49, down from 66 the week before, but ahead of numbers recorded over the same period last year by two.

New listings fell to their lowest level this year as local agents added just 90 Saskatoon homes to the MLS®. That’s 55 fewer homes than were listed the previous week, and 16 fewer than were offered up for sale on the system over the same week of 2017.

Sales

The inventory of active residential real estate listings available through the multiple listing service® fell to 1631 by this morning as 122 linstings came to the end of their term without a sale. Total listings slipped by 111 units from last week and is down by nearly 150 homes from a year ago and now at the lowest level recorded since mid-March. A closer look at the major categories of housing shows 917 single-family detached homes for sale in Saskatoon, down from 1007 at this time last year. Condo inventory fell by 45 on an annual basis leaving us with 608 properties bearing an active status.

Actives

A solid showing of buyers at the upper end of the real estate market pushed the weekly average sale price, and the weekly median price higher to $339,884 and $325,000 respectively. The six-week average price moved higher as it has during five of the past six weeks. It finished the week at $340,505. That is up more than seven thousand dollars from last week, enough for an annual gain of about twelve hundred dollars. This is also the first time the measure broke $340K since mid-February. Meanwhile, the four-week median price slipped lower by twenty-five hundred dollars from a week earlier to close the period up annually by more than eleven thousand dollars.

Price

One Saskatoon home seller found themselves in a bidding war resulting in a sale price that exceeded their asking price by two thousand dollars. Buyers won the week with 43 of 49 sales reporting a sale price that netted those buyers an average discount of $14,388.

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.

List

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them.

General

Thank-you for reading TeamFisher’s Saskatoon Real Estate Week in Review.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Please feel free to call or text me at 306-241-6676 or reach me by email at norm at teamfisher dot com.

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra