Saskatoon real estate week in review: May 30 – June 3, 2011

If last week was a bust, this week was a boom. Saskatoon real estate agents reported 120 firm house and condo sales to the local MLS® this week to record the largest volume sales week since the last week of June in 2007. This week’s sales are up fifty units over last week and are higher by almost as much when compared against the same week last year. Looking at average sales over the past two weeks things look more or less “normal” for the season, and normal feels good to most in the business. Agents are busy, buyers have a decent selection of good homes to choose from and sellers have a reasonable chance of selling if they have a sound pricing and marketing strategy.

As sales spiked higher, new listings of Saskatoon houses and condominiums followed with a total of 152 properties being added to the inventory. The total number consisted of 103 single-family homes and forty-nine condos. Overall, new listings were up by thirty-eight units from last week and ahead of the same week in 2010 by a dozen.

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Nearly fifty expired listings that came off the system at the end of May kept the total inventory of MLS® listings in the residential category from climbing, in spite of the fact that new listings exceeded sales by some thirty-two units. Total active listings actually slipped by twelve from the close of the previous week to 1393, about on par with the number of Saskatoon homes that were available at the same time last year (1401). Today, we have 797 houses and 516 condos displaying an active status on the multiple listing service®. Again, those numbers are virtually unchanged when compared against numbers from this time last year when they stood at 814 and 512 respectively.

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Cancelled and withdrawn listings came in at forty-five. Twenty-nine of those listings reappeared on the system as a “new listing,” the same day they were removed. An additional forty-nine Saskatoon home sellers adjusted their pricing strategy, most opting for a lower price.

The median selling price of a Saskatoon home bounced back this week climbing nearly fifteen thousand dollars from last week to $292,250. Of course, the average selling price followed in the same direction claiming a ten thousand dollar gain to finish the week at $313,465. Some upward skewing can be seen in the average. This week saw two sales at the extreme upper end of our market range, one at $825K and the other at slightly more than $1.1 million. In spite of higher prices for the week, both of the longer-term price measures took a bit of a dip. The six-week average price dropped just eight hundred dollars to $318,222 for an annual gain of eighteen thousand dollars. The four-week median slipped further dropping eleven thousand dollars on the week to $295,000 and finishing ahead of last year by just six thousand dollars.

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Overbid activity increased as nine lucky sellers bagged a deal for more than their asking price, by an average of $4,622. Another eleven found a buyer willing to pay their full list price. 100 of 120 sales reported a price that was below the asking price by an average of $9,054 or roughly 2.9 percent.

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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