Good day! After a two week break from the normal routine I’m back in Saskatoon. For anyone that may have missed it, Becky (my lovely wife) and I have been away in Peru on a very special project. I’ll look forward to telling you more about that later this week.
While it doesn’t appear that the bottom has fallen out of the Saskatoon real estate market while we were away, a quick perusal of recent sales suggests some softness has returned following a fairly brisk July. As of today, there are 297 residential sales that have been reported for the month of August compared to 374 for all of August last year. We have one more day of sales to include before we close the books on this month, and Monday is often one of our strongest days but it seems doubtful that we could make up more that half of the gap. August will be down from last year, as has been the case each month except July.
This, however, is the “week in review” so let’s talk about the past week.
Saskatoon real estate agents reported 88 firm residential sales this past week, up from 83 the previous week to fall short of numbers realized over the same week in 2014 when 100 homes traded hands. That’s the fifth consecutive week that sales have been softer on a year-over-year basis. Again, we see some July weeks showing annual gains, but weaker sales compared to last year has been the case most of this year.
Meanwhile, the number of new listings added to the Saskatoon multiple listing service® came on pretty strong at 212, the highest number we’ve seen for any week since late June. Cancellations were also quite high at 102 so I suspect the majority of the “new listings” were actually already active under another MLS® number. In any case, 212 is up from last week when 198 homes were added to the system and a huge jump from the same week last year when just 153 homes were listed for sale.
The total number of Saskatoon homes that are showing an active status remained stubbornly high showing little change from last week. As of this morning there are 2059 properties for sale here, down just one from last week, and well above the 1583 homes that were actively being marketed on the MLS® a year ago. Today’s totals show 1210 single-family homes up from 1000 at the same time last year. Condo inventory sits at 688 for an annual increase of 240 units.
A lack of activity at the upper end of the market brought our median sale price lower by more than 15K when compared to the previous week. That number came in at $334,450. The lack of upper end sales (and a couple of really low end sales (22K and 56K) brought the average sale price of a Saskatoon home way down to $334,191 for its weakest performance in months. This was enough to usher the six-week average down almost five thousand dollars to $357,049 to reach its lowest point since May. It closes the week down about $1200 from where it was a year ago. Meanwhile, the four-week median price still managed to grow to $348,850 for a weekly increase of nearly nine thousand dollars and an annual gain of close to 17K.
It’s somewhat surprising to see that overbid sales are continuing, even as summer approaches its close. This week, eight sellers wrapped up a deal for more than they were asking with an average overbid of $8,088. On the other hand, 79 deals closed for less than asking price with an average discount of $10,195. One more closed at full list price.
Other notable real estate activity this past week included 112 cancelled and withdrawn listings (102 and ten respectively), 34 expired listings and 101 price changes.
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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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