Saskatoon real estate week in review: June 19-25, 2016

The Saskatoon real estate market saw sales cool rather significantly this past week as firm deals fell to just 78 homes, down 14 from last week for a year-over-year decline of 30 units when compared against sales for the same week last year. New listings also slipped lower for the week to 205, down just three from last week but beating last year’s numbers by six.

Any hope that Saskatoon home sellers may have had that the inventory of active real estate listing had peaked were dashed as levels suddenly turned higher and reached a new record level of 2175. That’s up 45 from a week ago for an annual increase of 82 Saskatoon homes. I suspect that we are very close to peak numbers for the year. A quick look at past years suggests that inventory levels seldom grow much after this point in the calendar year. A closer look at the numbers by category shows 1159 single-family homes displaying a “for sale” status. That’s up from 1137 from last week but well down from the numbers recorded at the close of the same week last year when there were 1227 single-family homes available to buyers. Meanwhile, condo inventory continues to push new highs as those numbers grow by 17 from last week to reach 827. At this time last year, there were 665 Saskatoon condos for sale so we’re up in this category by roughly 25 percent.

The mix of activity saw fewer sales above $500K this week and that caused the average sale price and the median price for the week to slip marginally lower to $354,450 and $346,676 respectively. Following a pretty steady upward run that’s lasted the better part of two months, the six-week average price fell by two thousand dollars from the previous week to record an annual loss of just over nine thousand dollars. The four-week median price which has been on a similar tear leveled off to match last week’s number of $342,000 for an annual decline of thirteen thousand dollars.

The softer activity appears to have given buyers the upper hand at the negotiating table this week. Overbid sales were completely shut out, and only three listings were reported to have sold for the full asking price. On the other hand, 75 buyers made off with a discount that averaged $11,341. 

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

Norm Fisher

Royal LePage Vidorra