Saskatoon real estate sales numbers bounced higher after recording one of the softest weeks we’ve seen in months last week. Local REALTORS® brought 83 firm residential deals to the multiple listing service®, up from 65 for the previous period, to finish seven deals below what was recorded for the same week last year. Meanwhile, the number of new residential listings that were added to the MLS® continued to slip lower with this week’s tally reaching 171 for a seven day decline of 21 units, down from 214 from a year ago.
Decent sales, softer listing activity and a good burst of expired listings helped push the total inventory of active residential listings lower. It fell to 1985, down from 2058 a year ago to record the largest annual decline we’ve seen since listings fell lower on a year-over-year basis for the first time in more than three years, last month. Today, buyers can find 1091 single-family homes offered for sale on the MLS®, down nine percent from levels recorded at this time last year when 1199 detached homes were available. Condo inventory inched lower this week as well as those numbers slipped to 723 for an annual gain of just 43 units.
The mix of higher end versus lower end sales looks a lot like it did last week. Consequently, the weekly average and the weekly median stayed fairly stable at $349,950 and $349,900 respectively. The longer term measures moved in opposite directions as the six-week average price continued to decline for the fifth consecutive week to settle at $347,075 for a weekly decline approaching five thousand dollars. It did finish ahead of last year by a couple of thousand bucks. Interesting to me is that this downward drop to the six-week average seems to repeat itself annually around this time of the year. In each of the last four years it has fallen fairly hard for several weeks before bottoming around this time (or over the next few weeks) when it begins to climb again through the balance of the year. While the six-week average slipped lower, the four-week median price pushed for higher ground and reached $343,850 for a weekly increase of close to 4K to finish up from a year ago by a bit more than ten thousand dollars.
While six lucky sellers did manage a full price offer, and three others found a buyer willing to pay more than their asking price by an average of $3,243 it was a good week for buyers. They managed to grind themselves a discount at the negotiating table in 73 of this weeks 83 deals, and recorded a lofty average discount of $15,497 one of the largest we’ve seen in awhile. This number appears to be skewed by a few deals that saw huge discounts including a Rosewood priced at $850K that sold for $70,000 below list, a Montgomery home that took a $47,000 discount and a handful of other homes around the $500,000 mark that went $20,000 to $30,000 below list.
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
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