Average Saskatoon home sale prices were down 12 percent year-over-year in January to $302,412. By comparison, the average price in January of 2017 and 2018 was $341,260 and $344,720 respectively. The challenge with averages is that the numbers can be skewed in a given period and are therefore not a reliable reflection of pricing. For this reason, the Canadian Real Estate Association created the MLS® Home Price Index (HPI) for major cities to give a more accurate reflection of pricing trends.
The HPI establishes attributes for a handful of typical housing styles; Single Family, One Storey, Two Storey, Townhouse, Apartment and a composite of all five. It then establishes a base value to each with the starting point of 2005. From that starting point, changes in value are recorded over time to get a better sense of what is happening to pricing and where prices may be trending. For example, the MLS® HPI value for a typical single-family home in January of 2005 was $140,400. This value reached its peak in May of 2015 at $329,500. At the end of January 2019, this value is at $304,300, down from $307,300 last January. This indicates a less drastic decline in year-over-year values than the average price of a sold Saskatoon home would suggest.
The total MLS® dollar volume for sales in the Saskatoon Region for January was $84 million, down six percent from a year ago and comparable to 2017. In spite of this dollar volume decline, January home sales on the Multiple Listing Service (MLS®) in Saskatoon declined by only one percent in January to 199 transactions. The region surrounding Saskatoon had 60 MLS® sales in January, only five fewer than last January and 18 percent more than in January 2017.
Residential MLS® listing totals for January were the lowest in the past six years with 555 new listings introduced to the market, down ten percent from last January. For the market surrounding Saskatoon, the number of new MLS® listings was unchanged from a year ago with 216 units listed for sale. “New listings to the market are not always houses being introduced for the first time to the market,” comments Jason Yochim, CEO of the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® (SRAR). “Many new listings are homes that did not sell in the initial listing attempt and are relisted, often at a revised price.” The total number of active listings as at the end of last month was 1,450 compared with 1,529 last year. “It’s positive to see the overall number of active listings decline to prepare the way for prices to recover,” adds Yochim. “Some price ranges still have a good supply to choose from while others do not.
Jason Yochim CAE, CRAE
Chief Executive Officer – Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS®
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