After two weeks of less than encouraging activity, the Saskatoon real estate market saw a surge in home sales. Local REALTORS® reported 52 firm residential sales to the multiple listing service®, an increase of 22 from the previous week and up by five sales from the same week last year.

The number of new listings added to the MLS® moved in the opposite direction. This week, just 115 listings entered the system, down 30 from last week, but higher by 20 units when compared against the same period last year.

The inventory of Saskatoon homes for sale on the MLS® continued to move higher as it likely will each week until about the middle of the year. As of this morning, there are 1351 active listings in the residential category. That number is up 20 from a week ago, and down by 93 annually.

Condo inventory grew by 11 units this week to 505, leaving us down on a year-over-year basis by 50 units, or roughly ten percent. The number of single-family homes offered for sale on the MLS® grew by just five from last week to end this period at 776, which is 37 fewer detached homes than were available at the close of the same week last year.

Sales activity in price categories below $200,000 was surprisingly weak, while buyers shopping for homes above the $500,000 mark came out big. Consequently, the weekly median price jumped by almost 100K to $365,750. The weekly average grew by nearly 60K to reach $362,509.

The six-week average sale price moved higher by more than eight thousand dollars from last week. It closed the period at $333,908 which is close to $25,000 higher than it was at this time last year. The four-week median price took a larger leap to $318,500 for a weekly gain of $18,500 and an annual increase of more than 40K. It’s worth pointing out that both of these longer-term measures were unusually low at this time last year. Again, unit sales are at their lowest point across December and January which can result in some unreliable averages.

This week’s sales saw one resale property trading above the asking price to break a five-week shut-out. That single seller netted a modest bonus of $1000. Meanwhile, 45 of 52 sales were reported to have sold at a price that was below list by an average of $13,192.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that this chart may show over list price sales, even when I have reported the number as 0. Those sales are typically new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely sold and included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. For example, a new home listed at $450,000 sells at a price of $490,000 after 120 days on the market may have included a basement development that was not anticipated in the listing 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.

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them. 

I'm upping my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.

TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

The Saskatoon real estate market continued to experience a major chill through this week. Just 30 residential trades were reported to the MLS® system, down three from last week to fall short of numbers recorded over the same week last year by 27. 

The new listing activity showed no signs of slowing in spite of the frigid weather. A total of 145 Saskatoon homes were added to the multiple listing service® this week for a weekly increase of nine and an annual drop of just one.

The number of Saskatoon homes for sale on the MLS® grew for the third consecutive week to reach 1331. That’s up 63 units from last week’s close, but still well below the 1453 residential properties that were for sale last year at this time within the city.

A closer look at the database by category reveals that buyers have 771 single-family homes to choose from. That’s 30 fewer detached homes than were available at the close of the same week last year. Condo numbers are at 494, down from 560 a year ago.

The median sale price for the week fell again to $267,450 as entry-level buyers continued to take advantage of the market. Some bigger price tags at the upper end pushed the average sale price for the week higher to $307,757.

The six-week average price slipped modestly lower to $325,261 for a weekly loss of about sixteen hundred dollars while taking annual gains amounting to a little more than four thousand dollars. The four-week median price fell sharply to $300,000 for a weekly drop of nearly 16K. It too, was up on a year-over-year basis increasing by just over two thousand dollar gain.

Once again, sellers hoping to drive a bidding war that would push offers above the list price were shut out. Meanwhile, 27 of the week’s 30 sales closed below the asking price netting those buyers an average discount of $12,730.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that this chart may show over list price sales, even when I have reported the number as 0. Those sales are typically new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely sold and included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. For example, a new home listed at $450,000 sells at a price of $490,000 after 120 days on the market may have included a basement development that was not anticipated in the listing 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.

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them. 

I'm upping my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.

TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA), recently released national sales statistics for December of 2019.

According to the report, "Home sales recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems edged down 0.9% in December 2019, ending a streak of monthly gains that began last March. Activity is currently about 18% above the six-year low reached in February 2019 but ends the year about 7% below the heights recorded in 2016 and 2017."

"National measures of market balance continue to mask significant and increasing regional variations. The number of months of inventory has swollen far beyond long-term averages in Prairie provinces and Newfoundland & Labrador, giving homebuyers ample choice in

"Home price trends have generally been stabilizing in the Prairies in recent months following lengthy declines but are clearly on the rise again in British Columbia and in Ontario’s the Greater Golden Horseshoe (GGH). Further east, price growth in Ottawa and Montreal has been ongoing for some time and strengthened toward the end of 2019."

Highlights of CREA's report

• National home sales declined by 0.9% on a month-over-month (m-o-m) basis in December.
• The actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was up 22.7% year-over-year (y-o-y).
• The number of newly listed properties dropped by a further 1.8% m-o-m.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) advanced by 0.8% m-o-m and 3.4% y-o-y.
• The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average sale price climbed 9.6% y-o-y.

Read the entire report on Canadian MLS® sales for December 2019.

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

Gripped by a sudden and severe chill, the Saskatoon real estate market cooled this week as residential sales fell to just 33 units, down ten from the previous week, and lower by six when compared against the same week last year.

New listing activity moved in the opposite direction with 136 Saskatoon homes being added to the MLS® database. That’s 36 more than were listed the week before, and a decline of two from the same period of 2019.

MLS® inventory began its slow and steady upward climb as the number of Saskatoon homes for sale on the system grew from 1219 last week to 1268 today, which is down from 1409 at this time last year. The levels recorded over the past two weeks are the lowest that we have seen since the first week of March 2014. 

Reaching peak levels in 2017, the housing inventory numbers have been falling slowly but consistently since that time. Given the very small numbers of construction starts we’ve seen over the past two years, I expect that this trend will likely continue through 2020. It will be some time before we can call it a shortage, but if demand continues to roll with the momentum it gained through last year we may in fact see some modest upward pressure on prices. That said, I think there is a bit of a “pent-up” supply of ready sellers who would love to unload a property that they are currently “underwater” on. As prices stabilize and edge higher, those homes will steady the supply and keep us from reaching “shortage” levels.

The current inventory is made up of 731 single-family detached homes, down from 783 at this time last year, and 475 condos, representing an annual decline of 71 units.

After slipping fairly sharply last week, entry-level buyers continued to dominate the sales board and pushed the median sale price for the week down another 50K to $270,000. A near absence of upper-end sales (just two deals above $500K and none above $600,000) helped bring the average price for the week sharply lower to just $278,739. That’s the lowest it’s been since the same week last year when it failed to reach $240,000.

Both of our longer-term measures headed lower on a weekly basis while maintaining annual gains. The six-week average price slipped close to eight thousand dollars from last week to $326,815 to find itself up about eighty-five hundred dollars from a year ago. Meanwhile, the four-week median price fell just over 14K from last week to settle at $315,750. That’s up nearly 30K from a year earlier when the four-week median price entered a strange slump that persisted until mid-February and then suddenly turned around. This leads me back to my repeated warning that prices are difficult to track in any meaningful way when sales levels are this low. At just 33 deals, a few sales (present or absent) can drive these averages significantly.

No sellers won the overbid lottery this past week. The only sales that went above list were new homes that had been on the market for some time, which suggests that the buyer ultimately negotiated additional improvements in their contract. Meanwhile, 31 of the week’s 33 sales recorded a below list price sale generating an average discount of $12,668.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that this chart may show over list price sales, even when I have reported the number as 0. Those sales are typically new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely sold and included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. For example, a new home listed at $450,000 sells at a price of $490,000 after 120 days on the market may have included a basement development that was not anticipated in the listing 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.

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them. 

I'm upping my Facebook and Instagram game. Follow me to receive updates on the Saskatoon real estate market and insights I've gained managing thousands of real estate transactions.

TeamFisher.com hosted nearly a quarter of a million user sessions and displayed more than 1.2 million pages to our visitors in 2019. If you have a Saskatoon area home you'd like to sell, we know how to get people looking at your home. Reach out to me directly to engage our team and learn about our processes.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra

The official Saskatoon real estate market numbers for the month of December have been released, again, ahead of the SRAR’s formal media release. Since it’s already January 10, I thought I’d get these results out to you now. 

On January 1 of this year the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® (SRAR), the Association of Regina REALTORS® (ARR) and the Association of Saskatchewan REALTORS® (ASR) amalgamated into one new organization called the Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association (SRA). The three aforementioned associations will soon cease to exist so it’s unclear to me at this point whether SRAR will actually deliver a media release this month. Should they do so, I will post it in the comments section of this post.

Sales post annual increase for the first year in five

December 2019 brought an exceptionally strong close to 2019 as local REALTORS® reported 203 residential sales to the multiple listing service® for a year-over-year increase of 24 percent. 

Across the year, Saskatoon real estate agents completed 3604 residential sales within the city of Saskatoon to end a four-year streak of declining unit sales. Overall, the number of Saskatoon homes that traded hands in 2019 increased by 8.4 percent for the year.

Single-family home sales led the way with a total of 2428 sales, up from 2279 the previous year but still well below the banner 2014 sales year when 2974 detached houses traded in Saskatoon. Condo sales grew to 1017 across 2019, to show an impressive gain over 2018 when 918 units sold. 

The number of Saskatoon homes for sale reaches its lowest point in nearly six years

During December, local agents produced 302 MLS listings, down 311 from December of last year.

At the close of 2019, a total of 7745 residential listings had been processed for the year, for an annual decline of three percent. 

Active listing inventory sat at just 1222 as the calendar turned and a new decade began. That amounts to an 18 percent drop from last year at this time. It’s the smallest number of active listings for the close of any month since February of 2014.

While it’s anyone’s guess as to what might occur this year, you can see from the chart, there is a clear trend of declining active listings inventory. Using the SWAG method (statistical wild-ass guess) of market evaluation, I expect this trend to continue through 2020. My guess is based almost entirely on the fact that employment conditions seem to favour an expansion of demand, and new home construction numbers (housing starts through 2019) will not lead to a huge number of new listings from that sector.

Prices show continued improvement and greater stability at the close of 2019

Saskatoon home prices continued to stabilize as the year closed. In December, the average sale price of a Saskatoon home was $333,857 which is down from $339,132 last December. 

As I’ve said before, looking at prices in December rarely provides a clear picture. Sales numbers are relatively small and just a couple of sales at the upper-end or lower-end of the market will have an impact on average prices that makes year-over-year comparisons difficult. For instance, the average price jumped more than $30,000 in September compared to the previous September. No reasonable analysis could conclude that the price of a Saskatoon home had actually increased ten percent. It was simply a reflection of more upper-end activity than the previous year.

The average price over the entire year is $331,592, down less than $1500 from 2018 when it was $333,055. The six-month rolling average price is now at $332,024. That’s down just $600 from where it was for the final six months of 2018.

The MLS® Home price index, which provides more of an apples to apples comparison indicates that the benchmark single-family home is down just one percent annually to $303,200. The benchmark price of an apartment condo is still down a substantial five percent to $169,500. Meanwhile, townhome prices show an annual increase of just over one percent as they rise to $218,500.

For those who bought at the peak, there would certainly be some challenges to selling now, but it seems that we may have found the bottom.

Thank you for reading my updates. I’m always happy to answer your real estate questions. Feel free to reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher dot com.

Norm Fisher

Strong sales in Q4 reinvigorate first-time home-buying segment

SASKATOON, January 9, 2020 -- According to the Royal LePage House Price Survey released today, the aggregate price of a home in Saskatoon decreased 1.0 per cent year-over-year to $368,954 in the fourth quarter of 2019. 

The median price of a standard two-storey home decreased 2.5 per cent year-over-year to $392,517, while the median price of a bungalow increased 1.3 per cent year-over-year to $338,345 during the same period.

“We’re seeing an increased level of interest in entry-level homes; the first-time buyer market has picked up, which skewed median prices downward,” said Norm Fisher, broker, and owner, Royal LePage Vidorra.

Fisher added that increased wages, combined with lower unemployment rates, is increasing consumer confidence.

“Incomes are rising and mortgage delinquencies are now falling,” stated Fisher. “There are strong indicators for an improving Saskatoon housing market in 2020, with modest price gains around one per cent, at best.”

Nationally, the aggregate price of a home in Canada increased by 2.2 per cent year-over-year to $648,544 in the fourth quarter of 2019. Similar to the third quarter, potential buyers are continuing to come back to the real estate market. In the first half of 2019, buyers had remained largely at the sidelines waiting to gauge the potential impact of the federal mortgage stress test.  

“The federal government has signaled that changes could come to the mortgage stress test mechanism in 2020,” said Phil Soper, president, and CEO, Royal LePage. “The stress test pushed people out of real estate markets across Canada temporarily. For the most part, buyers have adjusted, yet it still represents a significant hurdle as families pursue the dream of owning their own home.”

Soper added that the impact of the regulations-driven drop in demand is felt very differently in different parts of the country. 

“We believe policymakers have the necessary experience to modify the tool to meet the reality of today’s Canada - that we have very different and varied economies, and by extension housing policy needs, from region to region,” said Soper.

News Coverage for This Release

CTV Saskatoon - 'Strong Indicators'  that Saskatoon housing market will improve in 2020

GlobalNews - https://globalnews.ca/news/6404383/saskatoons-housing-market-royal-lepage-2019-2020

About the Royal LePage House Price Survey

The Royal LePage National House Price Composite is compiled from proprietary property data in 64 of the nation’s largest real estate markets. When broken out by housing type, the median price of a two-storey home rose 2.3 per cent year-over-year to $761,817, while the median price of a bungalow increased modestly by 0.7 per cent to $537,622. 

For more regional analysis, visit Royal LePage’s media room. The media room also contains royalty-free assets, such as images and b-roll, that are free for media use. 

The Royal LePage House Price Survey provides information on the three most common types of housing in Canada, in 64 of the nation’s largest real estate markets. Housing values in the Royal LePage House Price Survey are based on the Royal LePage Canadian Real Estate Market Composite, produced quarterly through the use of company data in addition to data and analytics from its sister company, RPS Real Property Solutions, the trusted source for residential real estate intelligence and analytics in Canada. Commentary on housing and forecast values are provided by Royal LePage residential real estate experts, based on their opinions and market knowledge.

About Royal LePage

Serving Canadians since 1913, Royal LePage is the country’s leading provider of services to real estate brokerages, with a network of over 18,000 real estate professionals in over 600 locations nationwide. Royal LePage is the only Canadian real estate company to have its own charitable foundation, the Royal LePage Shelter Foundation, dedicated to supporting women’s and children’s shelters and educational programs aimed at ending domestic violence. Royal LePage is a Bridgemarq Real Estate Services Inc. company, a TSX-listed corporation trading under the symbol TSX:BRE. For more information, please visit www.royallepage.ca. 

Happy New Year, everyone! I hope that you had a pleasant holiday with some downtime to enjoy your family and friends.

We are out of the gates for 2020 with a pretty solid week for the Saskatoon real estate market. Local agents report 43 firm residential sales to the MLS®, way up from the 18 deals processed during Christmas week, and close to double what was sold over the same period last year when just 23 trades occurred.

We saw a similar surge in new listing numbers as local sellers worked to get a jump on the spring listings market. A total of 62 Saskatoon homes were added to the multiple listing service®, more than double the previous week’s activity when just 28 homes were offered for sale, but well down from the first week of January last year when 102 residential properties were listed for sale.

The number of active residential listings available through the MLS® continued to fall. By this morning, total inventory stood at 1219. That number is down just 14 from the previous week’s close, but lower than it was last year at this time by 152 and the smallest number of active listings that we’ve seen for any week since early March of 2014.

Currently, the inventory consists of just 706 single-family homes, down from 764 at this time last year, and 456 condominiums, down from 525 a year ago.

Last week, I wrote a fairly lengthy piece on “months of supply” and the changing supply-demand dynamic. It’s worth a read if you’re in the market to either buy or sell as there is a clear trend developing that is leading to changing market conditions that those active in the market should understand.

Very strong activity at price points between $200,000 and $350,000 ushered the weekly median sale price of a Saskatoon home lower to $319,000 this week. The weekly average followed closely as it fell more than 40K to $330,460.

The six-week average price took some gains as it grew just under three thousand dollars to $334,247 to start the year lower annually by about fifteen hundred dollars. Meanwhile, the four-week median price took a large leap to $329,900 and claimed a year-over-year increase of roughly seventy-five hundred dollars.

The enthusiasm for overbidding remained low and not a single resale home went for more than the seller’s asking price. On the other hand, 38 deals closed for less than list price netting buyers an average discount of $13,371.

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.

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them. 

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra