Saskatoon real estate week in review: January 15-21, 2012

The second full week of the new year wrapped itself up looking a lot like the first. Saskatoon real estate agents reported a total of 52 house and condominium sales to the local MLS®, for a weekly decline of three homes and a year-over-year increase of four. New listings in the same housing categories slipped by seven units from last week to just 96 and finished two units shy of last year’s numbers. For those who can’t read between the lines, the most recent numbers show three consecutive weeks of increasing sales and decreasing new listings when viewed on a year-over-year basis. It’s far too early to draw any conclusions from that because we’re dealing with some pretty small numbers but it will be interesting to watch and see if any notable trends develop in the weeks ahead.

The total inventory of active residential listings on the Saskatoon multiple listing service® continued to edge higher growing by 16 homes over the course of the week to 918, just nine fewer than were available at the same time in early 2011. Today’s total inventory shows 535 active single-family home listings and 305 condominiums. At the same time last year, those Saskatoon housing categories stood at 503 and 376 respectively. The year-over-year decline in available condo listings continues to widen moving from 15 percent last week to 19 percent by the close of this week.

Cancelled and withdrawn listings slipped lower to just 21 with eight of those returning to the system on the same day they were removed, most at a lower price. This week, an additional 15 sellers adjusted the asking price on their existing MLS® listing. Another 15 properties expired from the system without a sale.

Fewer sales at the upper end of the real estate market brought the average selling price of a Saskatoon home lower this week by $45K to $305,680. The median sale price followed along and in fact, slid a bit more to $283,000. The six-week average still managed to push a little higher, gaining less than a thousand dollars on the week to close at $318,244 while it claimed an annual increase of just over seven thousand dollars. The four-week median price slipped about twelve thousand dollars to $309,500 finishing above the close of $298,000 recorded during the same week of 2011.

Overbid activity was pretty scarce as just one lucky seller found a buyer who was prepared to bid up their price.  That particular sale closed $2,000 above the asking price. Seven sellers closed with a full price offer while 44 of 52 recorded sales resulted in a sale price that was $8,640 below the asking price, on average.

I’m always happy to answer your Saskatoon real estate questions. All of my contact info is here. Please feel free to call of email me.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra