Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (April 13-17 2009)

It was one solid week in the Saskatoon real estate market as agents reported sales of ninety-one single-family detached houses and condos to the local MLS, and recorded the strongest number of unit sales since the week of June 9-13, not to mention the first year-over-year gain for unit sales in longer than I can remember. Firm sales increased by twenty-seven units compared to the previous week when sixty-four homes traded hands, and saw a year-over-year gain of twenty-one properties when compared to the seventy homes that hit the sold board during the same week last year.

New listings of Saskatoon houses and condominiums slowed to one hundred and fourteen units, down from one hundred and forty-nine last week and well below the one hundred and sixty-one homes which were listed on the Saskatoon MLS during the same week in 2008. Total active residential real estate listings saw a slight decline falling to 1,444 by the close of business Friday, down from 1,451 one week before. The current residential inventory offers 889 single-family detached homes and 30 semi-detached properties, 465 condominiums, 27 duplexes, 8 vacant lots and 8 mobile homes.

At the close of this week last year, total active listing sat at just 668 units so there’s little question that we have a huge head start on 2008. On the other hand, last April, inventory had started to expand at a rapid pace having already gained just shy of two hundred units month-to-date by this point. Over the following two weeks it climbed further to 844 residential units to start the month of May, up about eighty percent from the final week of Marchwhen total actives sat at just 470 units. This year, we see a net gain of just nine properties for the month of April. Is it possible that we could get through the month without a substantial gain?

On the pricing front, it was another decent week for home buyers as the average price of a Saskatoon home fell from $278,498 last week to just $266,054. The six-week average took a four thousand dollar bounce over the previous week to $272,642 as the lowest weekly average selling price for the year fell out of the front end of the six-week equation. Still, it remained down by just under $30,000 on a year-over-year basis. The four-week median selling price slid to $256,589 after three weeks of hanging very close to $260,000 but finished down a whopping $35,000 over the same week last year.

The average underbid slid to $10,376 from $13,141 last week to produce an average discount of 3.8% of the asking price, which is one of lowest percentages we’ve seen since I started crunching this stat. The percentage of offers accepted with a discount of $5,000 or less fell seven points to thirty percent while the $5,001-$10,000 range spiked higher moving from twenty six percent of sales to forty percent. Discounts of more than $25,000 lost some serious ground from last week when they accounted for sixteen percent of sales, amounting to just two percent this week, but the next highest discount categories picked up some steam making up twelve percent of sales compared to just two percent the week before.

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.

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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra