New residential listing activity in the Saskatoon real estate market continued at a more moderate pace for the second week in a row with a 185 (197 total residential) single-family homes and condominiums being placed on the market. Active listing edged up slightly from 1,125 last week, closing out this week at 1,154 units including 1,059 single-family homes and condos.
There is some evidence that listing activity is beginning to moderate to a more normal, perhaps even below normal pace. While new residential listings in May 2008 came in at 783, compared to 707 in May 2007, a quick audit of our MLS system suggests that it’s likely that fewer properties were listed in May 2008, than last May. I note a total of 212 cancellations were processed last month. I checked the status of about two-dozen of these cancelled listings and all but one had been re-listed, causing them to appear in the “new listing” category more than once. This is a common strategy that agents use when adjusting the price of a listing. By cancelling and re-listing, the property has the benefit of a prominent location in our system and agents more easily notice the reduction. This kind of activity was almost non-existent in May 2007.
Yet, the database of active listings grew by more than 300 units through the month of May. Most of this growth can be attributed to a decline in overall demand. At this point, there are 368 sales reported for May. Last year, there were 581 sales for the same period. May 2008 will be the third month of declining unit sales, which shouldn’t come as a big surprise.
Anyway, I’ll get back to the past week by noting that 82 houses and condos were reported sold, up fairly significantly from last week but still below average when compared to recent weeks.
Overbidding activity cooled off again with just about 10% of the weekly sales reporting sale prices above list price. The average overbid on those sales dropped below $10,000 again. 57 home buyers managed to get a bit of a break, negotiating an average of $8,477 off of the asking price.
The average selling price of a Saskatoon home was $309,158 for the week, the strongest recorded in the past five weeks, excepting the week of May 12-16, when a $1.7 million dollar sale skewed the number to just over $326,000.
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra