Happy New Year!
Another year is in the history books for the Saskatoon real estate market as the final week of 2015 came to a close.
As you might expect, weeks like these are typically slow as people are more focused on recovering from that holiday hangover brought on by a little too much turkey and dessert, not to mention a liberal flow of holiday cheer for many. It’s typically one of the few weeks of the year when a real estate agent can really get some rest, as the phone rarely rings and customer demands are low. This week, local REALTORS® reported just 28 firm residential sales, an increase of two when compared against the previous week, and down six when compared against the final week of 2014.
New listings managed to pick up a bit of steam as they grew by seven units from the week before to reach 48, but still fell well short of numbers generated during the same week a year ago when 74 Saskatoon homes were introduced to the Saskatoon MLS® system.
Just as you can count on this particular week to stink each year when it comes to reported sales, you can bank on active listings plunging lower as large numbers of listings with a December 31 expiry date slide out of the system with no love having been found. 2015 was no exception. As the calendar turned and the new year began 212 listings expired from the Saskatoon multiple listing service® and the total number of Saskatoon homes for sale fell to 1432 for a total weekly decline of 214. At the outset, that might appear to be good news to would-be sellers, and forgive me for bursting your joy bubble, but while this is the first time we’ve seen sub-1500 numbers since mid-February that number is up from 1032 at the end of the same week last year, which amounts to a 39 percent year-over-year increase in active listings numbers. That’s one of the largest year-over-year increases we’ve seen in a few months and we have now entered 2016 with the largest inventory levels I ever recall seeing for this time of year so we’ve likely got an interesting ride ahead as we move towards spring.
Taking a closer look at active listings by housing types we see 806 active single-family home listings, well down from 913 last week, but again showing a pretty hefty increase from a year ago when just 677 houses could be found showing an active status on the Saskatoon MLS®. Condo inventory slipped more significantly dropping from 568 last week to 480 today to find itself up on an annual basis by 122 units.
There wasn’t a great deal of upper end housing activity this week but the entry level was particularly soft which ushered the median price paid for a Saskatoon home sharply higher too $354,900 while the average price made a more modest but still strong jump to $365,029. The longer term measures moved in opposite directions as the six-week average sale price edged up just a couple of hundred dollars on the week to reach $355,231 for an annual increase of roughly 17K. The four-week median fell lower to $340,000 to finish down seventy five hundred dollars from last week but up by fifteen thousand when compared against the number recorded for the closing week of 2014.
Click the image for a larger version of the graph.
Five lucky sellers got a late Christmas gift as they wrapped up a deal at their full asking price. The remaining 23 faired fairly well too, even though they had to give a little to close the sale. Those deal averaged a discount of $11,689.
Other notable real estate activity this past week included 25 cancelled and withdrawn listings (18 and seven respectively), 212 expired listings and 11 price changes.
Once again, thanks to all of you who have done business with our team in 2015, and to those we just showed up for a market update here and there. We really do appreciate you. Happy New Year. May 2016 be your best year ever.
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra
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