Saskatoon real estate week in review: February 5-11, 2012

Saskatoon real estate sales continued at a bit of a sluggish pace this past week as local agents brought a total of 58 firm single-family home and condominium sales to the MLSÒ system, up two from last week, but well below the 83 units that traded during the same week last year. The blip on last year’s sales line for this week is clearly atypical for the season, but still, there’s a sizable year-over-year gap, a somewhat rare occurrence in recent months. Meanwhile, new listingsslipped lower on a weekly basis falling from 157 last week, to 130 this week and coming in on par with the numbers generated during the same week in 2011.

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A strong week for new listingsand a softer period for sales brought the total number of residential listings available on the multiple listing serviceÒ higher by 34 units to 1007, just slightly more than the 1000 units that were available at the close of the same week last year. Year-over-year, the inventory of Saskatoon condos continues to see some large drops, falling from 403 properties last year to just 345 today. Single-family homes show a pretty good increase moving to 582 homes from 550 at this time last year. Over the previous four years, MLSÒ inventory levels have taken a substantially different path each year, 2012’s numbers are pretty much following 2011’s trend very closely, at least for now.

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Listings that were either cancelled or withdrawn from the system spiked higher by about 50% to reach 31. Another 40 home sellers adjusted their asking price this week, most moving lower. Meanwhile, 20 Saskatoon real estate listings came to the end of their term and expired without a sale.

A near absence of sales above the $500K mark (just two) caused house prices to soften across the board. The average sale price of a Saskatoon home slipped close to $40,000 from last week to $293,224 and made a rare appearance below the $300,000 mark. In fact, this is the lowest weekly average we’ve seen since the week of March 25, 2011. The weekly median followed along and slid lower by $15K to finish the week at $294,950. The six-week average price fell by nearly five thousand dollars compared to last week and settled at $315,624 for an annual gain of roughly sixteen thousand dollars. The four-week median hit its lowest level this year at $300,000 for a weekly decline of almost $10K and an annual gain of twelve thousand dollars.

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The majority of this past week’s sales (50 of 58) recorded a sale price that was below the seller’s asking price by an average amount of $8,186. Another seven sellers managed to find themselves a full price offer. One seller ended up above the asking price, exceeding it by just $100.

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Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra