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Saskatoon real estate week in review: December 12-16, 2011

Saskatoon real estate week in review: December 12-16, 2011
Saskatoon housing sales continued at a pace that was busier than we would expect at this time of year. Local agents reported a total of 63 detached house and condominium sales to the multiple listing service® this week for a weekly gain of seven units, beating sales for the same week a year agoby 22 homes.


New listings came in lower than sales this week as would be sellers delayed their entrance to the market until after the holidays pass. Total house and condo listings came in at 52, a drop of seven from the previous weekto finish roughly on par with new listings for the same period a year ago.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph.


Total MLS® listings in the residential category took a fairly good drop but still finished the week at levels above last year’s. As of this morning, there where 1,008 residential listings showing an active status for a weekly decline of 54 properties and an annual gain of 41. Today, buyers will find 571 single-family homes and 373 condominiums available for purchase. Last year at this time, those categories stood at 527 and 382, respectively. You may recall that over the past couple of years, single-family home inventory has rarely been up on a year-over-year basis. It currently sits eight percent higher than it was at this time last year.


Still, these numbers strike me as fairly healthy, assuming that sales in the first quarter of next year are able to match the five-year average for this area, which I expect will be the case. By contrast, look to Regina’s inventory that currently sits at only 421 residential units including 334 single-family homes and just 63 condominiums. Unless those numbers see a sharp increase in the early next year, we could see some sharp price increases there in early 2012. Looking back about ten years, Saskatoon home prices where at about a twenty percent premium compared to Regina. This year, we’ll wrap the year up with a difference of around eight percent. I expect that we’ll see that gap close even more by spring of next year.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph.


Cancelled and withdrawn listings pushed a bit higher this week at 30 units. In a rare twist, surely related to the holidays, fewer than half of those returned to the market as a new listing. An additional 17 Saskatoon home sellers adjusted the asking price on their home. Meanwhile, 27 MLS® listings came to the end of their term and expired without a sale.


Following a fairly sharp decline last week, the average selling price of a Saskatoon home bounced back to $318,716. The weekly median sale price also bounced back in a big way picking up about $30K to finish in the more normal range of $305,000. The six-week median price slipped a little more than a thousand dollars from last week to $315,874 for an annual gain of just four thousand dollars. The four-week median gained about as much on a weekly basis to finish at $301,888 claiming an annual gain of just under five thousand dollars. Prices appear to be wrapping up the year very close to where they were at the close of 2010.


Click the image for a larger version of the graph.


One lucky Saskatoon home seller managed to complete a deal for $5,000 more than their asking price on the first day that the home was offered for sale. An additional seven found a buyer who was willing to offer the full asking price. The remaining 55 sellers sharpened their pencils to wrap up a firm sale at an average discount of $10,230.


Click the image for a larger version of the chart.


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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra

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