For the sixth consecutive week, Saskatoon real estate sales showed strong gains over the same week last year. Local REALTORS® reported 119 firm residential sales to the MLS® system this week, up nine from the previous period, for an annual increase of 47. That further reduced year-over-year sales declines which have been getting slimmer now since late May. We are now just 16 units shy of where sales stood at this time last year.

New listing activity came back with a bang as 195 Saskatoon homes were added to the multiple listing service®. That amounts to a weekly increase of 52 listings, and it’s up from the same period last year by 23.

The total number of homes available to Saskatoon home buyers grew modestly from 1517 at last week’s close to 1545 this morning. 

My gut is telling me that many of these properties already have an offer on them, at least in the most popular price ranges. I inquired about 20 homes yesterday that are priced between $350,000 and $400,000 for one of our new buyers. By the time I connected with all of the listing agents, my list had been whittled down to just eight homes that were available to be shown today.

The listings that appear as “active” include just 864 single-family homes. That’s down from 1153 at this time last year. We also have 588 condominiums (apartments and townhomes), down from 698 at this time last year.

“Months of inventory” fell lower again as it has been doing every week for the past month. With 1545 active listings and 530 sales in the past 30 days, supply is now at 2.9 months, the lowest it has been since 2007.

1545/530 = 2.91 months. 

As a reminder, a four to six month supply is considered to be a balanced market, a supply greater than six months tends to favour buyers, while a supply of fewer than four months is considered to create seller’s market conditions.

Sales activity at the lower end of the real estate market was brisk and that brought the median price for the week sharply lower to just $308,000. The weekly average price took a dip as well to $337,883.

In spite of brisk activity, both longer-term price measures also headed lower. The six-week average slipped by about five thousand dollars from last week’s close. It came in at $337,456 which is down two thousand dollars from a year earlier following six weeks of year-over-year increases.

The four-week median price also fell by 5K from last week. It settled at $329,950 for an annual increase of roughly $12,500.

Overbid activity came back strong this week as 11 Saskatoon home sellers found a buyer willing to pay more than their asking price by an average of $5,839. Meanwhile, 95 of the week’s 119 sales went for less than the list price netting those buyers an average discount of $11,938.

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. 

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Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra