Suddenly, like it came out of nowhere, the Saskatoon residential real estate market recorded an exceptionally strong sales week with a total of 117 home sales firming up delivering the highest volume sales week since late June of 2014. This is the first week during which sales exceeded 100 units this year, leaving some feeling hopeful that April sales might come around and that the dismal sales numbers recorded over the first half of the month are now in the rear view mirror. This week’s sales are up by 51 units over last week and exceed sales reported during the same week last yearby 26.
Saskatoon real estate agents were not just kept busy selling homes. They listed up a storm over the week as well adding 262 Saskatoon homes to the multiple listing service® to produce what appears to be a new high for weekly listing. I see a 253 in last year’s numbers but no other weeks that reached 262 in the past five years. That number is higher than listings brought in last week by 49 and up on the same week a year ago by 73.
The total inventory of Saskatoon homes listed for sale on the MLS® continued to grow as it climbed from 1827 last week to 1869 by the close of business Friday leaving us up on numbers recorded at this time last year by 463. A closer look by category shows 1067 single-family homes, up about 22 percent from a year ago when 860 houses were offered for sale in Saskatoon. Condos, on the other hand, show a 44 percent annual increase with 628 units being offered for sale, up from 427 at this time last year.
Prices were up this week as three of the four measures that we look at made gains. A little more activity at the lower end of the market brought the median price paid for a Saskatoon home down about 5K to $342,500 while the average price made some gains to $361,874. After six consecutive weeks of declines, the six-week average price took its first upward movement to grow by four thousand dollars from last week reaching $344,050 to find itself down about ten thousand dollars from where it sat a year ago. The four-week median price edged up to $335,000 for a weekly increase of two thousand dollars and an annual loss of $12,500.
Some signs of a bit of spring heat can be seen in the weekly overbid numbers which came in at 13 this week, the highest number we’ve seen in months. The average overbid was $20,944 which was impacted by new home sales that included after market extras not included in the asking price. On the flip side, 93 Saskatoon home buyers managed to finish their deal with a discount averaging $10,498. The remaining ten transactions closed at the seller’s asking price.
Other notable real estate activity this past week included 72 cancelled and withdrawn listings (64 and eight respectively), 24 expired listings and 59 price changes.
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra
