Saskatoon housing sales took a fairly typical seasonal path this week, right into the trough, as real estate agents reported just 41 house and condo sales to the multiple listing service®, down 22 units from last week’s close to finish even with sales reported during the same week last year. For those who are following the annual tally, we finish the week with 4417 residential sales, quickly closing in on the 2007 record of 4448. With two weeks of sales left to be counted in the year we should have a new record for annual sales in the making. The number of new listings added to the Saskatoon MLS® systemcontinued to slip lower, also quite normal for this time of year. Agents brought just 77 new listings to the system this week, down from 108 last week, and behind numbers generated over the same week last year by 18.
The number of active Saskatoon residential real estate listings on the MLS® system continued to fall sharply as the total slipped to 1350 this morning, down 60 units from last week’s close, and still well up from levels seen a year ago when they were at 1208. Still, we’ve lost nearly 200 units over the past three weeks which appears to be the sharpest, most sustained decline we’ve seen in a few years time. A good number of those listings that are gone result from expiries, where a home is removed from the system because it failed to sell during the term that was agreed up between seller and agent. Another 216 properties are scheduled to expire by the end of December so it’s looking like we may start 2015 with active listings below 1200, the smallest year-over-year increases in over a year. I expect that many of our recent expired listings will resurface in the new year for another go at the market.
Taking a closer look by housing category, today’s totals show 799 single-family homes being available to buyers, up just 59 from a year ago. Active condominium units total 406 up from 351 at this time last year.
A falling number on entry level real estate sales ushered the weekly median and the weekly average higher as they registered $366,700 and $385,786 respectively. That’s the second highest weekly average recorded this year, but goofy things can happen with the weekly numbers when units sales hit these lower levels. Looking at the longer term measures, we see the six-week average price staying pretty firm at $361,293. That represents a change of just a hundred dollars over last week, but high enough to claim an annual gain of about fifteen thousand dollars. The four-week median price continued to proceed in a straight line on the chart as it measured $349,900. That’s the same number recorded at the close of the previous week, ahead of levels seen a year ago when it was just under $320,000.
Like last week, just one lucky seller found a buyer willing to pay more than their asking price, but the overbid topped 10K, a nice early Christmas present. Meanwhile, 36 buyers ground themselves a better deal and closed on their purchase averaging a discount of $12,570. That’s the largest number we’ve seen in awhile. It’s fairly typical to see sellers give a bit more in December in hopes of wrapping up a deal before Christmas. Another four sellers closed with a full price offer.
Other notable real estate activity this past week included 43 cancelled and withdrawn listings (37 and 6 respectively), 53 expired listings and 37 price changes.
Highlights from the news this week
Saskatchewan incomes in second place nationally - Star Phoenix
Saskatoon employers still upbeat on hiring - Star Phoenix
Drones helping sell Canadian homes and property - CBC News
2015 Housing Market Outlook Report - Remax
Slower price growth expected in Canada’s real estate hotspots - Globe and Mail
Housing market overvalued as much as 30 percent: Bank of Canada - Globe and Mail
Stephen Poloz says up to 30 percent overvaluation risk to economy - CBC News
Bank of Canada provides ‘forward confusion’ on state of housing market - Financial Post
CMHC to hike user fees and mortgage rates could follow - Financial Post
A map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate areas is here.
An overview of data collection and calculation practices for our statistical reports is here.
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Norm Fisher Royal LePage Vidorra
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