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Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (September 24-28 2007)

Whether or not you wish to call it a downtrend, there should be little question that the Saskatoon real estate market has cooled considerably when compared to recent months. It’s beginning to feel “normal” again with listings lingering a little bit longer and prospective buyers are once again feeling like they have some options which didn’t exist just a couple of months ago. The inventory of active residential listings reached 631 units, the highest point this year.


Overbidding activity continued to cool with only 20% of Saskatoon homes selling for more than the asking price, down from 30% the week before. A full 71% of reported sales traded below the asking price. The average overbid declined again, to its lowest level since I started the week in review.


This past week’s average selling price was up several thousand dollars from the previous week but was still well below numbers recorded just a few weeks ago.


Here’s a look at the numbers from this past week.


See a Google map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports


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

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According to a new report by Statistics Canada, Saskatchewan experienced the largest increase in retail sales when compared to all other Canadian provinces between July 2006 and July 2007. Retail sales in Saskatchewan surged ahead 11.5% during the study period, well above the national average of 3.8%. Alberta was second amongst the provinces showing growth of 8.4%.

Retail market showing the most growth included automotive, building and home supplies, home furnishings, pharmacies and general merchandise. Sales in food and beverage saw a slight decline of 1.1%

I thought this was an interesting follow up to Consumer spending about to peak in Saskatchewan.

Read the Star Phoenix story 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

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Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (September 17-21 2007)

In spite of a reduction in new residential listings and marginally higher home sales the Saskatoon real estate market continued it slow but steady trend towards “balance.” A total of 110 Saskatoon homes were placed on the market, while 83 detached homes and condominiums were reported as having sold. The total number of active residential listings stood at 617 at the week’s end.


It was one of those weeks that just felt slow. Agents were talking about a lack of showings, particularly on homes priced much above the “average.”Only 30 listings were published as “conditionally sold” which could mean some fairly bleak “firm sale” numbers over the coming week.



Here are a few of the highlights from this week’s stats as I see them.


  • This week saw the lowest number of new residential listings (110) since the week of April 23-27.
  • The percentage of Saskatoon homes selling for more than the asking price dropped to its lowest level (30%) since the week of February 19-23.
  • This week brought the largest percentage of sales recorded below the asking price (59%) since I started the “Week in review.”
  • The average list price and average sale price of a Saskatoon home was driven lower due to a decrease in area 1 activity and an increase in area 4 home sales.
  • Area 5 sales stood out against activity in all other areas with 6 of 9 homes selling above list price and an “average overbid” of more than $12,000.


See a Google map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports


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

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Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (September 10-14 2007)

The Saskatoon real estate market continued to plug along showing little real change over the previous week. New listings of Saskatoon homes outpaced sales by a fairly large margin and the week closed with 610 active residential listings on the Saskatoon MLS®.


Here are a few of the highlights.


  • The percentage of homes selling above the asking price remained fairly stable at about 40%. Remarkably, area 4 showed the highest percentage of the major real estate areas.
  • The “average overbid” also stayed steady and below the $10,000 mark.
  • The average selling price was below the average list price in all areas except area 5.
  • Average list prices and average sale prices reached a new high, largely driven by four luxury home sales with sale prices exceeding 600K. It’s quite amazing when you consider that only three properties sold for more than $600,000 through all of 2006. So far in 2007 there have been 29 sales and there are 20 active listings in that range.
  • The average underbid was skewed down, particularly in area 2 where one luxury property sold $110,000 below asking price.




See a Google map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports

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

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Doug Elliot, publisher of the Sask Trends Monitor newsletter is warning that consumer spending has “gone into some kind of bubble that’s going to burst.” In a Star Phoenix story titled, “Sask. Consumer spending expected to peak soon” Elliot warns that the big spending spree has to end sometime. He sees that “sometime” looming, perhaps as soon as early 2008.


Elliot notes that massive spending in Saskatchewan is based partly on economic reality to the extent that employment and incomes in the province have increased, but he adds that a variety of psychological factors that are hard to quantify have been encouraging people to spend more money, raising concerns that the level of consumer debt is increasing while savings are decreasing.


One of those factors is related to increasing property values which tend to “make homeowners feel richer and thus more inclined to spend,” says Elliot.


Read also: Your Saskatoon home is not your second income


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

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RBC’s most recent housing affordability survey was released yesterday and it should come as no surprise that Saskatoon and Saskatchewan once again received special attention showing some of the sharpest erosion of affordability when compared to other markets across Canada.


A quick look at the “mortgage carrying costs by city” charts appears to indicate that servicing a mortgage on a Saskatoon home requires a larger percentage of income than 15 of the 20 cities represented in the survey results. Ouch! Home owners in Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, and Toronto pay a larger percentage of income. Though it’s tough to tell from these graphs, we may now be less affordable than Edmonton.


It’s also worth noting that these results represent changes to the end of the second quarter of 2007, and that Saskatoon continued to see some increases through the third quarter while other western markets experienced considerable cooling. I expect that we’ll see affordability deteriorate further in the next report, though likely not as significantly as we have over the last two.


Here are a few of the highlights from this report.


“Homeownership costs continued to climb steadily with Canada's housing affordability sharply eroding across all four housing types in the second quarter, according to the latest Housing Affordability report released today by RBC Economics.”


The report goes on to say, “Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia witnessed the most significant erosion in housing affordability. Affordability deteriorated by approximately 20 per cent across each of the home segments in Saskatchewan, marking the worst quarterly deterioration on record. Over the past couple of years, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Calgary have suffered the largest deteriorations of all Canadian cities.”


“Housing markets conditions from Manitoba eastward are not a cause for concern, but conditions in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia warrant caution given the speed of the massive turnaround in affordability in several key cities. The economic fundamentals are supportive, but have been priced in fairly aggressively. In our view, a continued cooling in the pace of price gains and an ongoing pull back in sales-to’ listings ratios lie in the cards in these cities.”


Read the RBC Housing Affordabilty report here

Read the overview specific to Saskatchewan


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

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Note: The graphics in this post were updated on September 13, 2008 to reflect the final sale numbers as reported by agents for August, 2007. The graphics show the final figures while the commentary reflects the statistics as they had been reported as of the date of the original post.


The average selling price of a Saskatoon home took a substantial jump in August, recovering all which appeared to be lost in July, and then some. The average selling price of houses and condos combined climbed to $258,508 from $245,893 in July. Total unit sales dropped to 361 from 411 the previous month.


Prices of Saskatoon houses saw the larger increase when compared to condos with the average rising to $270,726 from $253,446 in July. The total number of houses sold dropped to 252 from 315 the previous month.


The average selling price of a Saskatoon condo also increased from $221,495 last month, to a new high of 230,260. The number of units sold increased to 109 from 96 in July.


See a Google map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports


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

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The Conference Board of Canada announced today that Saskatoon will replace Calgary as Canada’s economic growth leader in 2007. Calgary has topped the list of Canadian municipalities for the last two years.


The Conference Board’s website provides this single highlight from their “Saskatoon: Metropolitan Outlook” report which sells for $725. “This year’s real GDP growth of 4.7 per cent in Saskatoon will prompt employment to advance by 4.8 per cent.”


CBC’s web coverage can be found here


Of course, this is excellent news for a market which has seen housing price increases in excess of 50% in almost all housing categories. For months, many have been asking “when will the rest of the economy catch up?” Perhaps your raise is on its way.


A tip of the hat to “Jedi” for the heads up on this story.


Read also: RBC predicts solid economic growth for Saskatchewan in 2007 & 2008


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

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If learning that Saskatoon will be the economic growth leader in Canada this year wasn’t enough for you, check out this report written by Bank of Nova Scotia economist Adrienne Warren which sees Edmonton and Saskatoon homes as the most “overvalued” in Canada.


Warren’s report indicates that Canadian house prices have “deviated from historical averages” by 8% this year while Saskatoon has deviated by 21% and Edmonton prices have increased 25% ahead of historical norms.


Read the Globe’s report 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

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Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (September 3-7 2007)

The Saskatoon real estate market took its biggest leap towards “balance” this week as new listings of houses, condos and duplexes outnumbered sales by nearly two to one. A total of 126 new listings came on the market while just 66 homes found new owners. This week’s numbers brought more changes than I can recall seeing since I wrote the first post which became the “Week in review” back on February 17, 2007.


Here are a few of the highlights.


  • The percentage of homes which sold above the list price fell to 35%, the lowest level since the week of February 19-23.
  • The average overbid dropped 36% from last week to $9,335 reaching its lowest point since the week of February 26-March 2.
  • The average underbid was actually larger than the average overbid in four of the five Saskatoon real estate areas.
  • For the first time since the week of February 19-23 the average selling price of a Saskatoon home was lower than the average list price.
  • Total active residential listings reached their highest level this year at 591 units.
  • 19 sellers called it quits by withdrawing from the market and another 10 listings expired without a sale.


If you compare this week’s numbers to any other week between 1993 and 2006 you couldn’t help but think that the Saskatoon real estate market is really on fire. When compared to almost any other week in 2007 it starts to feel a little soft around the edges.



See a Google map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports


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

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Saskatoon real estate sales top $1 billion dollarsOne bee-lee-yun dollars!


The Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® announced today that Saskatoon real estate agents have reported sales in excess of one billion dollars so far in 2007. The figure includes transactions in all real estate categories and a full $754,735,000 can be directly attributed to residential activity. It is particularly remarkable that August would close with such a strong number given the fact that we have never managed to sell one billion dollars worth of real estate in any one year.


Read the story in today’s Star Phoenix and let me know what you think.



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

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Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (August 27-31)

Last week, I indicated that I thought we were going to see some bleak numbers for Saskatoon real estate sales in this week’s report. As it turns out, sales were pretty much on par with recent weeks. A total of 89 Saskatoon homes were reported sold to the local MLS® between Monday and Friday. There were 140 homes listed during the same period, yet active listing inventory made just marginal gains closing the week at 565 units, an indication that more properties are expiring without a sale, or being withdrawn from the market by prospective sellers. As more listings are failing to sell at “offer presentation” time, more sellers are re-listing their properties at prices which are closer to matching their expectations.


Here are a few of the week’s highlights


  • The percentage of homes selling above the asking price slipped back to 47%, a difference of about 12% from last week and on par with the declining number we saw the previous week.
  • The average overbid fell to its lowest level since the week of March 26-30 at $14,665.
  • 44% of reported sales sold below the asking price. This is the highest percentage we’ve seen since the week of March 26-30.
  • The difference between the average asking price and the average selling price reached its lowest level since the week of February 26 – March 2 at just $3,828 (above the average asking price).
  • The average selling price remained solid and at $256,844. Next to the week of August 13-17 this week’s average selling price is the highest this year.


eGoogle map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports

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

Read
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