Saskatoon real estate week in review–November 9-13 2009

Saskatoon real estate sales slid again for the second week in a row to hit their lowest level since the week of March 16-20. Just fifty-two Saskatoon houses and condominiums were reported firmly sold this week, a drop of seventeen properties compared to last week, but still ahead of the same week last yearby twenty-one unit sales.

New listings dropped even more significantly, falling to just fifty-nine homes, down from eighty-eight last week, and less than the same week in 2008 by seventeen homes. New listing activity came in at its lowest point since the first week of January 2009 when just twenty-two Saskatoon homeswere offered for sale on the MLS system.

Total active residential listings fell again this week, but just modestly. As of this morning, there are eight hundred and sixty-three properties showing an active status, down just nine from last week, and six hundred eighty-one fewer than were available at this time in 2008. Presently, there are just five hundred and twenty-one houses and three hundred and eight condominiums offered for sale on the Saskatoon MLS system, down from nine hundred and forty-eight and five hundred and twenty respectively for the same time last year.

Cancelled and withdrawn listing came in at just thirty-one units, with just over half of those (seventeen) immediately re-entering the system as a new listing. Thirty-one sellers made an adjustment to their asking price.

Strong sales activity in the higher priced categories, including one condo sale approaching a million dollars, pushed the average selling price of a Saskatoon home to it’s highest weekly level this year. It reached $307,444, a gain of $15,177 compared to last week, but still below the average for the same week last year by about thirty-five hundred dollars. The six-week average moved higher to hit $283,603, about forty-three hundred dollars ahead of last week, and about thirty-four hundred dollars shy of last year’s levels. The four-week median sale price advanced by seven thousand dollars on a week-over-week basis to reach $277,076, finishing roughly six thousand dollars higher than the same week in 2008.

Click the image for a larger version of the graph.

Average underbids on homes that sold for less than the asking price remained steady at $11,081, however, higher prices brought the average discount as a percentage of the asking price lower to 3.4%, down from 3.7% last week. Still, the lower discount ranges remained most active with nearly seventy percent of Saskatoon home sellers completing a deal within ten thousand dollars of the asking price.

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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Vidorra