Home sales continued at a strong pace this week as Saskatoon real estate agents reported 110 firm transactions to the MLS®. That is 11 fewer sales than were completed the week before, but up sharply from 78 for the same period last year. 

This was the fifth consecutive week in which sales increased on an annual basis. Brisk activity through the month of June is quickly making up lost ground that would be credited to the COVIC crisis through April and May when home sales plummeted. As of today, the market is down just 58 sales from where it stood at this time last year.

New listing activity slowed again. Agents added just 143 Saskatoon homes to the MLS® system this week, down from 168 last week, and well below the 188 that came on the market over the same week last year.

The inventory of active listings fell lower for the second week in a row. This is typically about the time of the year that inventory numbers peak and begin to fall slowly but surely as we move towards the fall. I had hoped that we would see numbers continue to grow over the summer, given the late start to serious sale activity, but only time will tell.

As of this morning, there are just 1517 active MLS® listings within the city of Saskatoon, down about 50 from last week’s close and 22% below levels recorded at this time last year. In that mix, we have just 863 single-family homes for an annual drop of 270 units. Condo inventory is at 581, down from 686 a year ago.

To make matters worse, my team’s experience over the last week seems to suggest that a good number of the homes that appear “active” are already conditionally sold, at least in the most popular price ranges. Calls for appointments seem to generate a “sorry, we already have an offer” response more than half of the time.

Based on sales for the past 30 days (494), the current supply of inventory is now at just three months, and likely as low as it has been since the market went berserk in late 2006.

A slightly higher level of upper-end activity nudged the weekly median price upward over the previous week to $354,750 while the weekly average slipped lower to $342,207.

The six-week average price inched lower by two thousand dollars on a weekly basis and settled at $342,581. That was enough to record an annual increase of about six thousand dollars. The four-week median price fell by just over a thousand dollars from last week to $335,000. It’s up seventy-five hundred dollars from this time last year.

Overbid activity fell by close to 50% as just five resale homes traded for an average of $12,300 more than the seller’s asking price. It was seriously skewed by one Nutana area sale that went 40K above asking price. Imagine that for a moment! That’s enough to purchase a decent new car. Across the negotiating table, 93 of the week’s 110 sales reported a price that was lower than the listed price by an average of $12,655.

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