Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (November 24-28 2008)

Following a week that produced a strong bounce in residential unit sales, Saskatoon real estate market activity slipped back to weaker levels as agents reported firm sales on just 37 properties including 28 detached houses and 9 condos.  Typically, both sales and listings are expected to weaken as we move into December so the weekly updates may be less than exciting over the next month. On the other hand, buyers are likely to find that seller motivation increases as activity weakens so we may see some interesting changes in prices and in underbid activity. Stay tuned.

New listing activity also weakened slightly from the previous weekwith the introduction of just 55 houses and 22 condominiums to the Saskatoon MLS. Additionally, 19 of 41 cancelled listings found their way back to the system as new listings. Total active listings declined just slightly falling to a total of 1,534 units including 922 single-family homes and 511 condominiums.

A couple of $500K plus home sales pushed the average selling price of a Saskatoon home higher to $293,424, up about $18,000 from the previous week. That change moved the six-week average slightly higher to $285,086 but the four-week median managed to remain pretty much consistent for the thirteenth week in a row. Based on the apparent trend of a falling average and a stable median, I can only conclude that active buyers are opting for a little more home, instead of a little less budget.

Buyers applied more pressure and benefited by growing the gap between list price and sale price as the average underbid increased from $12,623 last week to $15,174 this week. The percentage of homes that sold within $10,000 of the asking price slipped below 50 again while the $10,001-$15,000 and the over $25K category swelled. This past week also produced two overbid sales, something we haven’t seen in a while. They were both on new homes so it’s quite possible that the builder and the buyer agreed to additional improvements that pushed the price higher. 88 sellers changed their pricing strategy over the past 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