Saskatoon real estate week in review: October 16-22, 2016

I reported to you last week that mortgage brokers were working at “a feverish pace” attempting to process Saskatoon real estate deals to get them into the queue in advance of rule changes taking effect on October 17. That work resulted in 103 firm residential deals, up from 68 the previous week to beat sales for the same period last year by two dozen units. I expect that there will be a few stragglers that will also be reported firm next week but we should begin to quickly get some understanding of how these changes will impact markets across Canada.

New listings came in at 177 this week, up from 154 a week earlier to top volume for the same week last year by 27 homes.

The inventory of active residential listing for sale on the MLS® slipped lower by 34 over the course of the week to close at 1869, for a year-over-year decline of 113 properties. Most of the drop was seen in the single-family homes category which sits at 1012 today, down from 1135 a year ago. Condo inventory slipped two from last week to 688, up from 672 a year ago.

As you might expect, those affected most by mortgage rule changes are at the entry levels and that’s the kind of product that saw the greatest surge this week. That pushed the weekly median price and the weekly average lower to $319,900 and $339,302 respectively. Both of the longer-term measures in a downward direction as well. The six-week average price slid nearly three thousand dollars from the week before to finish at $352,700 to claim an annual increase of seven thousand dollars. The four-week median price dropped four thousand dollars on the week to $335,000 for a year-over-year loss approaching 10K.

While 11 sellers managed to find a buyer willing to settle a deal at full list price, just two were lucky enough to find someone who would pay more than the asking price, one by $10,100 and the other by just $100. The remaining 90 deals required some give on the seller’s side. Those transactions closed showing an average discount of $13,321. 

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