Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (June 29-July 3 2009)

Following what turned out to be one of the strongest weeks in the past two years, Saskatoon home sales slowed some, but managed to maintain a pace that is more typical of spring than summer, as local real estate agents reported eighty-nine house and condominium sales to the Saskatoon MLS system. This week’s final sales numbers show a drop of twenty-one units compared to last week, and a gain of twenty-three homes when compared to the same week last year.

Conversely, new listing activity picked up over last week with one hundred and nineteen houses and condos being offered up for sale, nine higher than the previous week, but forty-four units fewer than were listed for the same period last year.

Click the image for a larger version of the graph.

Total active residential listings took another hefty slide as the month of June closed and a few dozen MLS listings expired without a sale. This is fairly typical of any week that coincides with month end and it’s not unusual to see the inventory climb briskly over the next week as sellers make arrangements to put their homes back on the market. Still, total active listings finished the week at just 1342, down sharply from last week’s close of 1435, and ninety-one properties shy of last year’s number when Saskatoon real estate listings reached 1433. Active residential listings seem to be developing a downward trend declining fairly steadily over the past six weeks, reaching their lowest level since the week of March 9-13, and settling well below this year’s peak (May 18-22) of 1528 properties. Today, there are eight hundred and thirty-one single-family detached houses and four hundred and twenty-three condominiums displaying an active status on our system.

Sixty-two sellers adjusted their asking price this week and fifteen of thirty-one canceled or withdrawn listings came back as a new listing, most with a new price.

The average selling price of a Saskatoon home came back down to earth after crashing through the $300,000 last week for the first time in six months. It settled at $270,931, approximately $28,000 lower than the same week last year when it hit $299,301. The six-week average took a bit of a gain on a week-over-week basis, rising about $1700 to $280,204, down from $306,107 last year. The four-week median price slid nearly five thousand dollars to $272,300, down from $290,000 during the same week in 2008.

Click the image for a larger version of the graph.

Average underbids were down again, sliding from $11,393 last week to $9,973, but the average discount expressed as a percentage of the asking price remained fairly steady at about 3.6%. Overbid sales nearly fell of the chart with just two sellers bagging an offer above their asking price. Where it did occur, the average overbid was just $1100. The percentage of home buyers who were willing to strike a deal within $10,000 of the asking price jumped to seventy-one percent, up from fifty-eight percent last week.

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.

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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra