Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (April 6-9 2009)

Saskatoon real estate agents reported sixty-four firm sales of detached houses and condominiums to the Saskatoon MLS this week. While down by twenty-two units compared to the same week last year, sales were lower by just ten units compared to last weekand were certainly above the average for recent weeks. Not too bad, considering that it was a short week with just four full days of MLS service.

The short week didn’t prevent agents and sellers from finding time to list Saskatoon homes for saleas one hundred and forty nine properties in the house and condo categories were offered for sale. Listings for the week were up nine units compared to last week but continued to lag well behind on a year-over-year basis. This same week in 2008 saw 200 new house and condo listings. Total active residential real estate listings managed to push higher again closing the week at 1,451 units, up fifty-two over last week when they sat just below the 1,400 mark, and sharply higher than the 619 properties which were sale during the same week last year. As of this morning, there are 890 houses and 472 condos for sale within the city of Saskatoon.

Saskatoon home prices remained fairly level compared to recent weeks but continued to lose ground using year-over-year comparisons. Again, this was a period of sharp and steady increases through 2008 while the current trend over that same period this year is, at the very best, holding the line. The average selling price for the week crept up just about five thousand dollars over last week to finish at $278,498. The six-week average gained approximately seventeen hundred dollars over last week, closing at  $268,726; nearly twenty-eight thousand dollars lower than the number reached for the same week last year. The four-week median held steady compared to last week at $260,000 but fell further on a year-over-year basis to finish $31,750, or eleven percent, below last year’s number.

The average underbid recorded this week increased from $12,180 to $13,141 and amounted to an average discount of 4.5% of the asking price, up from 4.3% last week. The lower price categories on the underbid chart look a lot like a typical week with about sixty-three percent of Saskatoon home sellers accepting an offer within ten thousand dollars of the asking price. There are some big differences in the upper end price categories though as the $10,001-$15,000 category increased from fourteen percent last week to nineteen percent, the over $25,000 expanded in a big way from four percent to sixteen percent, while the $15,001-$20,000 category disappeared from the chart and the $20,001-$25,000 represented just two percent of sales compared to eight percent a week earlier.

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