Saskatoon real estate sales grew for the third consecutive week as local REALTORS® reported 48 firm residential deals to the multiple listing service®. That amounts to a weekly gain of 16 sales and brings us the first year-over-year increase of this calendar year. There were 38 unconditional trades reported during the same period of 2017. This week’s gains go a long way in mitigating the annual losses recorded over the previous two weeks.
The number of new listings added to the MLS® system slipped lower on both a weekly and an annual basis. A total of 140 Saskatoon homes were added to the inventory this week, down from 156 last week, and well below the 167 listings that were offered for sale during the same week last year.
The total number of homes for sale on Saskatoon on the multiple listing service® was nearly unchanged from a week earlier. As of this morning, there are 1525 active Saskatoon real estate listings in the residential category, up just three from the previous week. That’s 93 fewer homes for sale than were available at the same time a year ago, the lowest number recorded for this week in three years, and the third consecutive year-over-year decline to the database. A closer look at the major housing categories shows that buyers have 813 single-family homes to choose from, down three from last week, and below levels recorded at this time last year by 37. Condo inventory saw some gains this week as the number of units for sale grew by six to reach 613 for an annual decrease of 13.
You may recall that our last weekly report included an impressive amount of activity at the upper end of the market. More than 25 percent of the week’s sales were reported to have sold above $500,000. This week, less than ten percent of sales reached that level. On top of that, 25 percent of this week’s sales were priced below $200,000. These factors brought the weekly median and the average price tumbling lower to $281,750 (down 90K from last week) and $313,121 (down almost 70K) respectively. Neither the six-week average price, not the four-week median price were spared, though those declines were much more modest. The former slipped six thousand dollars from last week to finish two thousand dollars higher than it did at this time last year, while the latter fell five thousand dollars for the week, to claim an annual increase of fourteen thousand dollars.
Sellers hoping for a sale above asking price were left out in the cold this week, while six sellers reposted a sale at full asking. The vast majority of this week’s sales required some give on the seller’s side. Those deals were reported to have sold below list price with an average discount of $13,422.
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.
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