Saskatoon real estate week in review – Sept 21-25 2009

Saskatoon real estate sales retreated again falling to just sixty-seven properties, down eighteen units from last week, and just slightly short of production for the same week last year when seventy Saskatoon homes were reported sold. This is the first week that failed to beat last year’s numbers since the week of June 12.

New listing activity was also lower, but just marginally. Local agents brought one hundred and eight new house and condominium listings to the Saskatoon MLS system this week, three fewer than last week, and down fourteen properties compared with the same week in 2008.

Click the image for a larger version of the graph.

Active residential real estate listings held steady at 1088, down just three units from last week, but well below the 1758 properties that were available during the same week last year when active listings reached their peak for the 2008. At this time, there are six hundred and thirty-three single-family homes and three hundred and seventy condos displaying an active status on our multiple listing service. Last year, those numbers were at one thousand and ninety-four and five hundred and forty-three respectively. Typically, unit sales and new listings both begin to slow in the weeks ahead, and usually we would expect to see active listings continue to decline through the fall.

Canceled and withdrawn listings fell to just twenty properties this week and eleven of those came back for another run at the market as a “new listing.” Forty-seven Saskatoon home sellers adjusted their asking price.

The average selling price of a Saskatoon home remained steady at $273,700 while the six-week average fell roughly eight hundred dollars from last week to $284,114, lower than last year’s number by about $10,000. The four-week median increased eight thousand over the previous week to $273,000, ahead of last year’s number by just fifteen hundred dollars.

Click the image for a larger version of the graph.

The average underbid was nearly identical to last week at $10,150, and about 3.3% of the asking price. The percentage of home sellers who managed to bag a sale within five thousand dollars of their asking price fell sharply from 39% last week to just 25% this week but fewer high dollar discounts kept 45% of all done deals in the $5001-$10000 discount category.

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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra