Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (May 18-22 2009)

Saskatoon real estate sales were down this week compared to last, but continued to clip along at a better than average pace with eighty-two houses and condos changing hands, down from ninety-five units last week and well above the sixty-one properties that sold during the same week last year.

New listings of Saskatoon houses and condos came in at one hundred and thirty-eight properties, down three units from the previous week, and forty-one units lower than the same week last year when one hundred and seventy-nine homes were offered for sale on the multiple listing service. It would have been the slowest week for new listings since January if not for twenty-seven “to be moved” buildings located in McNab Park that were listed for sale, and thirteen condo units which were canceled from the system last week only to be re-listed this week.

Total active residential listings managed to push higher closing the week up twenty-seven properties to 1,528. The current inventory of Saskatoon real estate listings includes nine hundred and fifteen single-family detached houses, five hundred and nine condominiums, thirty-four semi-detached homes, thirty-seven duplexes, nine vacant lots, ten mobile homes and nine other things that apparently don’t fit neatly into any of the categories I’ve just listed. Total active listings were at 1,125 properties during the same week in 2008.

Prices took a sharp downward turn this week as the average selling price fell more than $30,000 from the previous week to $257,282. The change appears to be related to one of those strange anomalies that just happen for time to time. This week, there was just one lonely sale above the $400,000 mark, compared to fourteen the week before, so in spite of the fact that houses took a larger share of the sales this week, the average was pushed lower. The six-week average broke a seven week winning streak falling about $3,500 from last week to finish at $276,511 roughly $25K lower than the same week last year. The four-week median held firm at $270,000 for the third consecutive week, lower than the same week in 2008 by just $10,000.

Just fifty-one Saskatoon home sellers adjusted their price this week, not including the nineteen properties that were cancelled and re-listed, most at a new price.

Sellers were feeling the love this week as home buyers said yes to deals that were within an average of $9,124, or 3.1% of the asking price. I expect this is probably one of the highest sales to list price ratios that we’ve seen in some time. Over forty percent of sellers struck a deal within $5K of their asking price, while another thirty four percent settled for a discount between $5,001 and $10,000.

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