Over the past week as the number of known Covid-19 infections documented in Canada quadrupled, and the plea for appropriate social distancing measures grew louder, Saskatoon real estate sales and listings showed the first sign of responding to the pandemic.

The number of Saskatoon homes that were reported to have a firm sale slipped to 60. That’s down just four from the previous week, but lower by 19 when compared to sales for the same week last year. These are not terrific numbers for the first week of spring.

The supply of new listings was down far more significantly as just 63 properties were added to the multiple listing service®. That number is way down from 140 last week and further away from the 150 homes listed over the same period of 2019. This was the smallest number of listings for any week since the first week of January. 

In a week when sales nearly matched new listings, the active inventory of Saskatoon homes for sale slipped lower to 1466. That number is down from 1502 at last week’s close and well below the 1600 properties that could be found for sale on the MLS® a year ago.

Today’s totals include 862 single-family homes, down annually by a dozen units, and 523 condominiums, which is lower than what was recorded last year by 106.

Upper-end buyers were most active over the past seven days while buyers in the sub-200K range stayed home. Consequently, the weekly median and the weekly average sale price spiked higher to $360,000 and $361,975 respectively. Both of those measures are up nearly ten percent from last week.

Meanwhile, both the six-week average price and the four-week median price reached their highest levels this year recording numbers not seen more than a handful of times since early 2018.

The six-week average price reached $336,994 after three consecutive weekly increases and a general upward trend that has now lasted six weeks. It closes the week higher than it was the last week by six thousand dollars and up annually by more than 14K.

The four-week median price finished the week at $338,500. That’s ahead of last week’s number by eighty-five hundred dollars and nearly 27K higher than it was at the close of the same week last year.

On the heels of a week that produced the highest number of overbid sales this year, buyers won the week. In all but four instances (new homes that reported a sale price that exceeded the list price but likely included additional improvements not anticipated in the asking price) buyers came away from the negotiating table buying a home for an average of $14,834 less than the list price.

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

In an emergency meeting of the board of directors for the Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association this week, a decision was made to mandate the pause of all open house activity in the province.

Transcript

So for the first time in 27 years that I can recall, there are no open houses this weekend.

That's right, the Saskatchewan Realtors Association in an emergency meeting of the board of directors this week removed their support for open houses conducted by our members.

And basically what we did is we eliminated some avenues for advertising. Primarily on realtor.ca, which feeds data on open houses to various websites. So we removed that. Realtors are not able to advertise their open houses through those major sources. And our hope is is that will shut down the open house environment completely while we're dealing with this pandemic.

We certainly realize that there are people out there that have housing needs right now. And that some of those needs are near-crisis situations. But we believe that our membership is in a position to deal with that one on one, in a way that minimizes human contact, and potential spread of the virus.

If you need some help solving a housing crisis, do reach out to a Realtor. If you don't have a Realtor I'd be happy to hear from you.

We have processes to, to help you through this, that don't involve open houses.

I hope you have a great afternoon with your family. Read a book, watch some Netflix. Whatever you do to have fun, play a game. But stay inside and stay safe, we'll talk soon.

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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

Saskatoon real estate agents reported 64 firm residential sales to the MLS® this week. That’s down seven from the week before, but ahead by one when compared against sales for the same week last year.

New listings added to the multiple listing service® fell lower for the second consecutive week to just 140. That’s down 16 units from the previous week. Compared to the same period last year this week’s total is down by 24 new listings.

Active listings inventory grew as it typically does each week of this season. By this morning, a total of 1502 Saskatoon homes could be found for sale on the MLS®. That marks a gain of 28 from last week’s close but is down from levels recorded a year ago by 94.

A closer look at the major housing categories shows 879 single-family detached homes for sale, up ten from a week ago, and down just two annually. There are also 536 condominiums showing an active status, for a weekly increase of 13 and an annual decline of 89 units.

A slight increase in activity at the lower end of the Saskatoon real estate market ushered the weekly median price for the week down by 15K as it finished the period at $315,000. Some solid upper-end activity including a sale that topped the million-dollar mark helped push the average price for the week higher by more than four thousand dollars. It closed the week at $334,228.

The six-week average price continued to trend higher as it took a modest weekly gain of about three thousand dollars to reach $331,057. That was enough to leave this measure up annually by $5,000. The four-week median price grew by about a thousand dollars from last week to wrap up this reporting period at $329,950. That’s higher than it was a year ago by $6,000.

To my surprise, there were four resale trades reported to have sold for more than the asking price. Those overbids ranged from a low of $600 to a high of $10,100 and averaged $4,100.00. Meanwhile, 56 of 64 residential sales closed below the seller’s asking price and netted those buyers an average discount of $13,073.00.

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

We're all focused on reducing our exposure to Coronavirus. Businesses are busy figuring out ways to help customers through this challenge.

I've received statements from Royal LePage, my business landlord, my bank and others. All have suggested methods to interact with them to get our work done with less risk. I appreciate that.

Even my gym has adopted protocols to reduce the risk for those who chose to get fit there. It starts with the heavy use of hand sanitizers when entering the gym. A rigorous equipment clean up routine at the end of each workout follows. I'm impressed. If I'm going to be around other people it's nice to know that health and cleanliness are a priority.

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 February of 2020.

According to the report, "Home sales recorded over Canadian MLS® Systems rose by 5.9% in February 2020, marking one of the larger month-over-month gains of the past decade. Transactions surpassed year-ago levels in about 80% of all local markets, including all large urban markets."

 Highlights of CREA's report

• National home sales climbed 5.9% on a month-over-month (m-o-m) basis in February.
• The actual (not seasonally adjusted) activity was up 26.9% year-over-year (y-o-y).
• The number of newly listed properties jumped 7.3% m-o-m.
• The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) advanced by 0.7% m-o-m and 5.9% y-o-y.
• The actual (not seasonally adjusted) national average sale price climbed 15.2% y-o-y.

Read the entire report on Canadian MLS® sales for February 2020.

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 took a leap forward this week as 71 firm residential trades were reported to the multiple listing service®, leading us to our highest volume sales week so far this year. Sales are up 21 units from last week and ahead by 13 when compared to sales for the same period last year.

On the heels of a huge listing week the previously reported period when 199 Saskatoon homes were offered for sale, the number of new listings fell to 156, down eight from the same week last year. 

The total number of Saskatoon homes offered for sale on the MLS® increased to 1474 from 1450 at the close of last week. Inventory grew at twice the pace over the same week last year so when the dust settled this weekend, the annual gap had grown larger than it was at last week’s close.

 Listings numbers are now down annually by roughly 80 units or about five percent.

As of this morning, there are 869 single-family homes showing an active status on the MLS®. That’s up 14 from last week and an increase of nine from levels recorded at the close of the same week last year. Active condo listings are now at 523, up 10 from last week and down 78 units, or 13 percent from a year ago.

Sales activity for homes priced below a quarter-million dollars rebounded solidly this week and ushered the median sale price for the period lower to $330,648. With just four closed deals above the half-million-dollar mark, the average price for the week also fell lower to $330,000.

Meanwhile, the six-week average price took some small gains increasing $600 from last week to $328,103. That’s down about two thousand dollars on a year-over-year basis. The four-week median price closed the week at $324,900 which is unchanged from the previous week, and up just three hundred dollars from last year.

Just one lucky seller found themselves accepting an offer for more than their asking price. They ran off with a $5,100 bonus. Buyers continued to do well at the negotiating table as 62 of 71 sales closed below the asking price to net those buyers an average discount of $12,815.

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

Sometimes when you're marketing a home for sale, you'll encounter aggressive buyers who time pressure you to make a quick decision by putting a very short fuse on their offer.

While every offer should be taken seriously, due consideration should be given to the details. For most sellers, 90 minutes isn't ample time to feel comfortable moving forward.

This video offers a few ideas that you may find helpful as the market heats up and buyers try to put the pressure on you.

Transcript

Someone on our team had an interesting experience the other day.

They had booked a showing for a property for 6 p.m., and when they made that appointment, they were told that there were a couple of other showings that were going to occur there between 4 and 5 p.m., and by the time they arrived for their 6 p.m. showing, they'd received a text message saying that the property had been conditionally sold.

And, as it was, you know, one of the buyers that came through earlier wrote an offer very quickly, left it open for 90 minutes for the seller's acceptance, and the seller jumped on it and accepted it without taking the time to see what else may have transpired from the other showings that were occurring subsequently. And that's their decision to do so, that's fair, but as you begin to think about marketing your home and as the market continues to heat up, supply is falling, demand is increasing, you may want to give some thought as to how you can protect yourself from that type of bully tactic, 'cause that's what it is, right?

This buyer is pushing ahead, they know you have a hot commodity and they wanna wrap it up before anyone else does, and that's totally fair, but it's also fair for you as the seller to want to explore as many opportunities as you can. And I said the other day in a recent video that you should take every offer seriously, particularly your first offer and those that come early on, but it's reasonable for you to expect a reasonable amount of time to view and consider offers as well.

So, three things that you might consider doing as you roll into this season.

Number one, if you have a very hot property that you feel has been priced well and prepared well and it's in a price range and an area where demand is high and you know that there's going to be multiple buyers for that property, you may consider setting a date and time for the presentation of offers. So under that scenario, you would enter into a written agreement with your agent to hold offers until a certain date and time with the hope of having more than one to consider at one time and creating a competitive bidding situation.

Another tactic that's a little less aggressive is you could simply state in your listing that you won't consider offers that are open for less than 24 hours so that you and whoever else may be on the title of that property have an opportunity to sit down and discuss your options when an offer's placed in front of you.

And finally, thirdly, another tactic that we often use for properties that we feel are going to draw significant attention is we may market them exclusively for a period of time, and generally what we do there is we enter into an exclusive listing agreement with a seller that allows us the opportunity to begin to pre-promote that property before the actual MLS listing takes effect days or a week later.

During that period of time, we typically wouldn't allow any showings, but it would give us some time to spread the word that your property's coming, and in an ideal situation with an ideal type of property, we might have a number of showings scheduled throughout that first day of showings, and with a, you know, offers must be left unopened for 24-hour direction, an opportunity for you to really explore the full extent of the market and the opportunities that exist for you there.

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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

February was the sixth consecutive month of increasing Saskatoon home sales and prices now appear to be on the rise.

If such things interest you, this video contains an overview of activity and my thoughts on where the market is headed.

Transcript

All right, this one is for the nerds.

It's a bit of an update on MLS stats for February of 2020. Interesting results that just came out last week. 230 Saskatoon homes sold in February. Up 9% from February of last year. And making February the sixth consecutive month in which unit sales increased on a year-over-year basis. In fact, over the past 14 months, we've seen increases in 10 of 14 months and double digit gains in six of those.

Taking a little bit closer look by category here, I see that single-family home sales actually fell in February seven units, to 150 from last February. Condos though really cleaned up. They increased nearly 50%, jumping from 49 sales last February to 73 this February, so, strong indication that first-time buyers are actively engaged in this market, and that the current pricing levels are being warmly received by that group. And this is an encouraging bit of news that seems to be obvious over the past six months. I mean first-timers getting re-engaged with the market because, without a healthy first-time buyer market, you really don't have any kind of market at all. So, you know, that's really positive.

Looking at prices, though, I think tells a remarkable story. I mentioned at the end of January that the six-month rolling average price had increased $5,000 on a year-over-year basis. At the end of February, that measure is actually up $7,000. Single-family homes, the benchmark home price index price rose $3,000 on a year-over-year basis at the end of February. That's up from $1300 at the end of January. So, really accelerating price growth. Townhomes though, bang, homerun here for that category. Up $16,000 year-over-year at the end of February. At the end of January, that category was up $7,000. So, you can see that there's some price momentum happening there in that particular category.

You probably heard last week that the major lenders dropped mortgage rates a half a percentage point. It remains to be seen how that combined with other things that are in the news right now, like the coronavirus, how those things are gonna affect the market as it unfolds over spring. But typically, you would expect low-interest rates, an interest rate of that magnitude to really set the market on fire, and that's certainly a potential possibility.

I remain reserved about price growth over the year, and the reason for that is I think that there's a whole bunch of pent up supply laying about out there. There are lots of sellers who would have liked to have unloaded a Saskatoon property over the last couple of years but have been unable to because they are maybe in a negative equity position. And I think as we see prices grow some, more property will come on the market and that will really temper potential price growth, or at least, you know, runaway price growth, so that's not a big concern for me at this time, but I think it's becoming clear that we've hit the bottom, and prices are beginning to rise again.

So, if you have any questions, I'm actively engaged in the market as a realtor and a broker. I'd be happy to hear from you and the best way to contact me is through my website at TeamFisher.com. Have a great day and thank you for watching.

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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

Taking the time to properly consider and execute on "the four things you have control over as a home seller" pays dividends on at least two fronts.

1) Your home offers a unique opportunity in that your "gains" are not taxable. Sell for more, keep more.

2) Your home will sell faster. Marketing a home while living in it isn't fun. Faster feels better and saved time usually means fewer costs.

Following a proven process and properly executing will not only bring you more profit for your family's financial future but it will help you sell more quickly so that life can get back to normal faster.

The Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association released official MLS® stats for February 2020 today. Here is the media release that accompanied the report.

Saskatoon and region continued to show growth in the residential real estate market in February.

Sales of 230 in the city were up 9% from 211 in February 2019, and the region saw sales grow 11% from 283 last February to 314. Sales were above the 5-year average of 295, but still below the 10-year average of 338. Year to date (YTD), sales were up over last year; 9% in the city, from 412 to 449, and 8.6% in the full region from 556 to 604.

The sales dollar volume was also up. In the city, there was a 3.2% increase of $73.7M over last February, and in the region, last month’s $93.5M sales were up 7.4% over 2019’s $87.1M. YTD sales dollar volume was up 10% in the city to $145.1M and up 7.6% in the region to $183.7M.

The number of new listings decreased in both the city, down 2.7% from 481 to 468, and in the region, down 3.2% from 709 to 686. The 2,588 active listings in the region were down from 2,699 in 2019 and the 5-year average of 2,781, however still above the 10-year average of 2,494.

The sales to listing ratio in Saskatoon is 49%, and 46% in the region. Balanced market conditions exist in the 40-60% range, while below 40% is considered to favour buyer’s, and over 60% suggests a seller’s market.

Homes were on the market an average of 82.9 days in the region, up from 69.4 days at the same time last year, and 73.7 days in the city, up from 58.5.

The average home price in the city was $320,249, down 5.3% from $338,268 at this time in 2019. The MLS® Home Price Index (HPI), a more accurate measure of housing price trends, however, is up 1.1% from $282,500 last year to $285,600. In the region, the average home price was down 3.2% to $297,724.

“We see the trend of increased sales and decreased listings continue in Saskatoon and region,” says Jason Yochim, CEO of the Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association (SRA). “If this continues, we anticipate seeing prices increase. Upcoming changes to the mortgage stress test rules this April will likely start to positively affect our residential markets, as well, and we should see more potential home buyers qualifying for mortgages and subsequently entering the market.

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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

Some basic staging and professional photos go a long way in successfully marketing a home.

Buyers have a multitude of choices today and they qualify each one online. They're busy and eager to eliminate viewing homes that appear to be a waste of time. Nobody crosses the threshold of your front door before they've viewed you home online.

Consider that the first showing and plan to impress long before the buyer ever arrives at your home.

Transcript

The real estate business has changed a lot since I started in 1993.

At that time, a home buyer would come into the office, tell me what it was they were looking for, and I'd pick 10 or 12 homes from the multiple listing service and take them out on a tour. Today, they come to the office and tell us what they'd like to see.

And look, the average person is short on time. You know that. I mean, have you ever argued that there's too much time in the day?

So when a buyer is looking through hundreds of listings online, their primary objective is to eliminate. And they do that ruthlessly.

So if you're gonna get a showing on your home, your home needs to stand out from the hundreds of others that are there.

Look, if McDonald's can hire a burger designer and a professional photographer to create an ad for a Big Mac, a $3 burger, surely, we can do the same thing to market your home for sale.

If you don't have that Better Homes and Gardens sense, you need a professional decorator to help you put that together so that it looks well. And professional photos are an absolute must. I mean, don't get me started. If I see another beautiful home photographed with an iPhone, I might flip my lid.

I mean, you need these services and that's why our seller process includes them.

If you're talking to a real estate agent and they don't offer it and they're too tight to pay for it, you should look for someone else for sure.

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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