Saskatoon real estate week in review: July 21-27, 2013

As this fourth week of July wraps up the Saskatoon real estate market continues to move homes at an impressive pace with local agents reporting 98 house and condo sales to the multiple listing service® of the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® for the week. That’s two fewer homes than were sold over the previous week and an annual gain of 17 units. At this point it’s looking fairly certain that July’s sales will exceed those recorded during the same month last year, perhaps leaving us just slightly behind when comparing year-to-date sales for 2013 to the same portion of 2012. The difference will be slight, either way, if there is a change.

New listing activity looks like it should at this time of year. Saskatoon real estate agents brought 144 houses and condos to the MLS® market this week, down about a dozen from last week, two fewer than were listed during the same week a year ago.

Inventory continued to sit at slightly elevated levels with 1309 active listings in the residential category of the Saskatoon multiple listing service® for a weekly decline of eight homes and a year-over-year increase of 60 properties. Looking back a bit further, the five year average for total MLS® inventory available during this particular week is 1310. All is pretty much normal there. A closer look at listings by housing type shows 765 single-family homes and 455 condominiums available to Saskatoon home buyers today. Last year at this time, those two categories sat at 779 and 409, respectively. Just as we’ve been seeing each week for several months, single-family homes (houses) inventory is pretty darned stable while choices available in condominiums has grown for buyers over the past year.

This week saw a couple of residential sales that came close to hitting the million dollar mark with an average sale price of $941,250 between them. After that, there was a pretty short list of real high end property sales on the books. As you might expect, the average sale price recorded on this week’s sales fell lower by nearly twenty thousand dollars to $346,290 while the median sale price edged lower much more modestly slipping 3K to $330,000. Meanwhile, the six-week average sale price of a Saskatoon home managed to inch higher gaining a little more than two thousand dollars on the week to claim an annual increase of nearly twenty thousand dollars. The four-week median slid lower dropping about four thousand dollars from the previous week to finish at $325,950 to close the week ahead of the same week last year by $8,250.

Overbid sales increased from two last week to four this week. Those buyers offered up an average of $1600 more than the seller’s asking price to claim the home as theirs. Another 11 buyers offered to pay full price to close their deal. That leaves us 83 buyers who drove a harder bargain and closed their purchase netting themselves an average discount of $8,349.

Other MLS® activity this week included 45 cancelled and withdrawn listings, 11 expired listing and 51 price adjustments.

Highlights from the news this week

Housing math fails to add up - Star Phoenix
U.S. home sale drop in June while prices surge - Financial Post
Sask. household net worth fastest growing in Canada - Star Phoenix
Mayor concerned about mega project delays - Star Phoenix
We really are richer than we think - Star Phoenix

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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate