Saskatoon real estate week in review: August 10-16, 2014

The Saskatoon real estate market clipped along at a pace that’s fairly typical for this time of year. Local agents reported 86 firm house and condominium sales to the local multiple listing service®, the same number as were recorded last week, to end the week lower than last year’s volume by 12.

Interestingly, the number of new MLS® listings added to the system over the past week also matched the previous week’s at 161 but fell short of listings generated during the same week a year agoby eight.

Back in mid-June, I declared that the total inventory of active MLS® listings in the residential category had likely reached its peak for the year. The following weeks seemed to play along as we saw three consecutive declines in those numbers, the most downward action we’d seen all year. There have been some small ups and downs since then. One week we reached the peak a second time before inventory began to fall again. Those drops were short-lived, however. This week inventory reached a mew peak of 1580 active listings beating the previous high by seven homes. This week’s numbers mark a gain of 15 Saskatoon homes from last week to finish ahead of levels recorded a year ago when it sat at just 1362.

Taking a closer look by category we see 996 single-family homes and 453 condominiums bearing an active status today. Last year at this time those numbers sat at 830 and 436 respectively.

Slightly higher levels of activity in the upper end real estate market pushed the median price of a Saskatoon home higher this week to $339,450. The average price followed growing by roughly nine thousand dollars compared to last week to $360,523. Meanwhile, the six-week average price of a Saskatoon home inched up about twelve hundred bucks to $362,138 to claim year-over-year gains of roughly sixteen thousand dollars. The four-week median made larger weekly gains growing by thirty one hundred dollars to $343,000 to finish ahead of last year’s number by 10K.

This week just two lucky sellers closed an offer about their asking price. The average overbid was $15,050 thanks to a thirty thousand dollar overbid on one of those two deals. Another 13 sales closed at the full asking price while 71 of this week’s 86 home buyers ground a hard bargain for a discount averaging $10,349.

Other notable real estate activity this past week included 57 cancelled and withdrawn listings (48 and nine), 17 expired listings and 71 price changes.

Highlights from the news this week

Sask. housing starts to moderate: CMHC - Star Phoenix

Housing starts rise in July and top expectations - Globe and Mail
Winners and losers in Canada’s housing market - Globe and Mail
Seniors staying in their homes - the next trend in home renos - Financial Post
Rise in asset values pushes up Canadian’s wealth - Globe and Mail
Canadian home prices continue upward swing in July - Globe and Mail
Canada’s big banks posting stagnant growth in insured mortgages- Globe and Mail

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Norm Fisher Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate