Saskatoon real estate sales continued at a pace that more closely resembled a week one would expect in April than the final week of August. Local REALTORS® reported 107 firm residential sales to the multiple listing service®, down six from last week and up 14 when compared against the same week last year. This is now 12 consecutive weeks of annual gains in unit sales.

New listing activity was also “spring-like” as 181 Saskatoon homes were added to the MLS® over the week. That number is ten fewer than last week and the second week in a row in which new listing numbers fell lower. That said, it’s a substantially larger number than hit the market over the same period last year when just 145 new listings were made available to buyers.

The total number of residential listings appearing in the “active” category grew for the fourth consecutive week, which is also a bit unusual for the season. Gains have been quite modest. For instance, we moved from 1523 to 1542 over the course of the week. That number is down from 1869 a year ago.

A closer look at the major housing categories shows single-family detached houses at 869 today. That’s up by ten from last week’s close, but down annually by 248. Condo inventory is at 576 today, up just four on a weekly basis, and down by 64 annually.

For those who haven’t been following regularly, I’ve been sharing what we call “months of inventory” which is a measure used to weigh demand against supply. You arrive at this number by taking the total number of residential listings in the inventory and dividing that by sales over the past month. That gives you “months of inventory.” It’s generally accepted that a four to six month supply is considered to be a balanced market in which neither buyers or sellers have an advantage over the other. Anything above six months is a clear buyer’s market, and anything below four months is considered to be favourable to sellers.

Our 30-day sales figure this week is 464, down for the second week in a row, and falling pretty solidly this week by 33 units. When measured against a modestly growing supply, the months of inventory number is now 3.3 months. That’s still into seller’s market territory but it is moving back towards balance rapidly and now for a few consecutive weeks.

Home owners considering a sale should be aware that not all segments of the market offer the same advantages and proper pricing is still critical to success. If you’d like some advice on a specific property, reach out for a chat. You can book that here.

After falling lower last week, the median weekly sale price of a Saskatoon home grew by 10K to $340,000. In spite of the fact that we had just one sale over $700,000 this week, strong buying activity of homes priced between $450,000 and $700,000 pushed the weekly average price up by $8,000 this week to $359,808.

The six-week average price grew again, now for the sixth week in a row. It wrapped up the week at $357,222. That number is up more than $31,000 from a year ago, and close to its highest point this year. Meanwhile, the four-week median price also took some gains as it grew to $336,500 for a weekly increase of more than six thousand dollars and an annual gain of $36,500.

The number of overbid sales fell by close to 50% as just six sellers struck a deal above their asking price, while the average overbid increased more than $1,100 to $5,083. On the other side of the negotiating table, 89 of the week’s 107 sales closed below the listed price to net those buyers an average discount of $10,292.

Here is a breakdown of what the sales to listing price ratio looked like on this week’s sales. Please note that this chart may show over list price sales, even when I have reported the number as 0. Those sales are typically new properties that spent some period of time on the market, and most likely sold and included additional improvements that were not reflected in the original list price. For example, a new home listed at $450,000 sells at a price of $490,000 after 120 days on the market may have included a basement development that was not anticipated in the listing price. We report these to you as “at list price sales”, which is likely too generous in some cases, but it’s simply not practical to obtain the full details of each sale.

More weekly stats and numbers for those who love them. 

Clearly, some steam remains. Good luck out there, and remember, we have a team of highly trained pros who know the market inside and out. Happy to hear from you if we can help.

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I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions.  Reach out by voice or text at 306-241-6676 or email me at norm at teamfisher.com

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra