It’s clear now that the biggest sales week for the Saskatoon real estate market in 2021 is behind us now. For the past five weeks, residential sales have been trending lower, and this week was our softest sales week since the middle of March, just before things fired up for spring.
During this period, local REALTORS® reported 101 Saskatoon homes being sold, down from 112 last week. When the dust settled, we came in lower annually as well, a rare occurrence this year, which has largely stood out for year-over-year sales gains. Over the same period last year, 116 homes traded hands.
It’s worth noting that for the first six months of 2021, we were up against weak sales numbers as COVID upset last year’s spring market before it could get rolling. As we move through the last half of this year, we’ll be up against some large sales weeks from last year so we won’t be clocking big gains, and I expect we’ll see more weeks where we are down.
Still, at the close of June, Saskatoon home sales stood at 2,924, a 65% increase from last year, when sales had reached just 1,773 units. The strongest sales year in Saskatoon’s history was 2007 when 4,454 homes were sold. By June 30 of that year, sales had hit 2,535. It seems all but certain that we will break that record this year.
New listing activity continued that up and down bounce we’ve been experiencing for five weeks. Saskatoon REALTORS® listed 203 residential properties for sale, down from 233 the week before, but higher annually by 11 units.
The inventory of active listings available to home buyers moved higher again for the second week in a row, this time reaching 1517. That’s higher than the previous week by 35 homes, and the largest weekly increase since active listings pushed to their peak level during the final week of May. Still, today, we have 51 fewer residential listings than we had a year ago.
The number of detached single-family homes available for purchase rose to 786, up 27 from the previous week’s close, but still lower on a year-over-year basis by 93.
Condo inventory also grew to reach 637, up 19 from a week earlier, and further up by 40 annually.
Thirty-day sales fell lower now for the fourth consecutive week, this week slipping quite substantially from 561 to 508 to bring considerably improved inventory conditions for buyers in all of the three categories I’ve been tracking.
Here’s what “months of inventory ” look like across the broader market, and by category.
All residential - 1517 active listings / 508 sales = a three month supply (up by 0.4 from last week, still well into seller’s market territory but the best it’s been in months and headed in the direction of more balance)
Single-family homes - 786 listings / 316 sales = 2.5 month supply (up by 0.3 months last week. Strong seller’s market conditions).
Condos - 637 listings / 160 sales = a four-month supply. (up by 0.6 months last week and back to more balanced market conditions).
A slightly higher percentage of sales activity for homes priced below $250,000 brought the median sale price for the week lower to $341,450 while a few big sales at the upper end drove the weekly average sale price higher to $368,051.
Both of the longer-term prices measures that I watch continued to trend lower this week.
The six-week average price is now four weeks into a downward drift after reaching its annual peak of $381,210 in mid-June. It closed the week at $363,933, down about 2K from the previous week’s close but still higher annually by about twenty-four thousand dollars.
The four-week median price has now been headed lower for the past nine weeks after it reached its high point for the year at $382,295 in mid-May. It fell lower this week by two thousand dollars and is now at $335,000, and higher annually by just 5K.
The number of Saskatoon home sellers who managed to wrap up a sale for more money than they had asked when they listed their homes for sale slipped to 14, while the average overbid grew to $16,700. It’s worth mentioning that the overbid average is skewed significantly by one sale that reported a price that was $100,000 above the list price (see the top of the sales list below). If that sale was not in the mix, the average overbid would be more than seven thousand dollars lower.
Meanwhile, 80 of the week’s 101 sales reported a price that was below the list with an average discount of $9,336.
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.
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra
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