Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (May 25-29 2009)

The Saskatoon real estate market saw stronger than normal activity this week breaking the one hundred-unit sales mark for the first time this year. There were one hundred and thirteen properties sold, up from eighty-two last week, and ahead of last year’s number, also eighty-two. Reaching their highest level since the final week of April 2008when one hundred and seventeen Saskatoon homes traded hands, sales of houses and condos were up one a year-over-year basis for the third consecutive week. For the first time in as long as I can remember home sales in areas one through three actually came in higher than new listings.

New listings of single-family detached homes and condominiums came in at one hundred and twenty-seven properties, down eleven from last week, and off by fifty-eight homes when compared to the same week last year. Ninety-five houses and thirty-two condominiums were listed for sale over the course of the week. Overall, stronger unit sales and weaker listing activity pushed total active residential listings down by twenty-five properties compared to last week, to 1,502, but they remained up from the same week last year when 1,154 properties were showing an active status on the Saskatoon MLS. As of this morning, there are nine hundred and ten single-family detached houses and five hundred condominiums for sale in the city.

After falling off of a cliff last week for lack of sales in the over $400,000 price ranges, the average selling price of a Saskatoon home bounced back to $289,265 and reached its highest level since late February. This week, there were seventeen houses and condos sold for $400,000 or more. The six-week average pushed forward nearly five thousand dollars over last week to reach $281,148; still almost sixteen thousand dollars lower than you might have paid last year at this time. The weekly median sale price jumped more than $30,000 from last week to reach $277,000 but the four-week median managed to hold steady at $270,000 for the fourth week in a row, and settled $9,500 lower than it was during the same week last year.

Average underbids came in slightly lower than the previous week at $11,411 which represents an average discount of 3.8%. The percentage of sellers who managed to firm up a deal within $10,000 of the asking price declined slightly from seventy-five percent to seventy-two percent and the $10,001 to $15,000 category also saw a decline of three percentage points, while sixteen percent of Saskatoon home buyers settled their negotiation with a discount greater than $15,000.

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.

Follow our daily updates on Twitter @Norm_Fisher.

Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra