In a hopeful sign that a spring real estate market is on its way Saskatoon home sales and new residential listings both hit a weekly high for the year.
Local agents reported 77 firm sales, well up from the 55 that got a sold sign last week, and eleven fewer than we saw trade hands over the same week last year. This was the ninth consecutive week during which sales fell lower on an annual basis.
Meanwhile, new listings number spiked higher to 197 for a weekly increase of 67 Saskatoon homes. Still, that number is way down from the 253 local homes listed over the same period of 2017. Each week this year, new listings numbers have failed to match last year’s levels.
The inventory of active MLS® listings in the residential category grew by 46 to close the week at 1722, well below the 1931 properties that were available to buyers last year at this time. Once again, inventory is at a four year low for this particular week, now for six consecutive weeks. The number of single-family homes for sale on the Saskatoon MLS® system grew to 912, down from 1023 a year ago. Condo inventory sits higher by five percent this week as it increased from 682 at last week’s close to 716 today. That number is lower than it was a year earlier when 745 Saskatoon condos were for sale.
After nearly disappearing over the past few weeks, high-end home buyers returned to the market and drove all four prices measures we track higher. With three home sales averaging a sale price of nearly a million dollars each, the weekly average price of a Saskatoon home took the biggest jump as it grew by nearly $40,000 to reach $364,461. Meanwhile, the weekly median price was $15K higher than the previous week at $335,000. The four-week median price edged up $2500 from the previous week’s close hitting $320,000. That amounts to an annual increase of $3000. The six-week average price grew by ten thousand dollars to reach $344,457 to come short of levels recorded a year ago by eleven thousand dollars.
Two lucky sellers closed on offers that were above their asking price, one seeing a remarkable overbid of $90,000 on a property that was clearly underpriced, perhaps intentionally. Another 69 sellers found they had to be a bit more flexible and agreed to sell their home at an average discount of $13,983. That number was somewhat skewed by substantial discounts on the higher end sales, three of which contributed a quarter million dollars to the discount pool.
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
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