That said, another game is playing itself out, and man, we saw some serious level of new listings hit the market this week. Local agents added 241 house and condo listings to the Saskatoon multiple listing service® database this week. That’s up 48 units from last weekand it’s the highest number of new listings to be added to the MLS® for any week since May of 2008 when 248 Saskatoon homes hit the market. That was the year when total active listings reached their highest point peaking at around 1800 properties in late September.
So, sales are definitely rocking. We are well on our way to topping last year’s numbers quite handily, and in case you’ve forgotten, last year saw the second highest number of Saskatoon homes sold, ever, next to our big boom year, 2007. At the same time, listing inventory is substantial, keeping the Saskatoon real estate market in check and preventing prices from rising. It will be interesting to see if sales activity is strong enough to keep prices from slipping as we move out of our spring market.
Let’s talk about active listings then. This week’s activity brought the total number of active MLS® listings available in the residential category to 1506, up 66 from the close of the previous week to its highest level since the week of May 17, 2009. They are, quite literally, off the chart, or at least they would have been had I not adjusted the scale in my spreadsheet to accommodate the gains. Presently, we see 904 single-family homes listings bearing an active status, up from 729 at this time last year, for an annual increase of 24 percent. Condo inventory sits at 482, up from 377 a year earlier, for a 28 percent year-over-year increase.
Saskatoon real estate market activity was fairly well spread out across the spectrum of prices. The median price of a local home slipped just a bit lower to $341,925 and the weekly average followed along shedding just a few thousand dollars to hit $355,709. Meanwhile, our longer term measures also moved lower. The six-week average price paid for a Saskatoon home slid about four thousand dollars from last week to $350,670 actually falling below where it was a year ago by about 3K. The four-week median price edged down just one thousand dollars from last week to $339,900 and closed the week flat on a year-over-year basis.
Overbid sales saw their biggest week in a good long time as ten buyers offered to pay more than asking price. The average overbid reached $13,730 largely driven by one sale that went more than thirty thousand dollars over asking. Another nine buyers wrote a full price offer while 97 of this week’s closed deals wrapped up with a discounted sale price, reduced by $10,109 on average.
Other notable activity through the Saskatoon multiple listing service® included 57 cancelled and withdrawn listings, 17 expired listings and 56 price changes. Click the image for a larger version of the chart.
Highlights from the news this week
Downtown Saskatoon vacancy rates rise - Star Phoenix
Home prices show ‘early signs of accelerating’ - Globe and Mail
Canadian homes sales grow 2.7 percent in April as prices decelerate: CREA- TeamFisher.com
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate