Saskatoon sees increase in high-end home sales, even in softer market: SRAR

The Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® released MLS® statistics for the month of March 2016 this week. This italic text is from the media release that accompanied the stats sheet. The charts our supplements provided by TeamFisher.

Saskatoon continues to hold its own in the face of challenging economic times. Year-to-date, the number of homes that have sold for more than $700,000 has increased by 18 percent for a total of 26 units. This has helped to keep the average sale price for Saskatoon at $344,000 which is only two percent below the average a year ago. By comparison, the median price for a home in Saskatoon was up 1.2 percent.

Overall, unit sales are down six percent year-over-year from 764 units to 715. March saw a slowing in the pace of the number of homes listed for sale helping to slow the growth of the inventory.

At the end of March there were 1,857 properties available for sale in the city of Saskatoon, an increase of six percent over 2015. 

The CREA Composite Home Price Index was down 2.7 percent from last March indicating that there continues to be a very slight decline in housing prices overall.

Homes that are sold by Saskatoon REALTORS® are realizing just over 97 percent of their asking price and are selling in 46 days on average. "Economics tells us that an increase in supply levels will have levelling or declining effect on prices," comments Jason Yochim, CEO of the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS®. "Having said that, there are segments of the market that are performing well provided homes are priced properly," he adds. “This will generate the interest needed to obtain a strong sale price. A REALTOR® not only has the market expertise but is objective and emotionally detached from the transaction."

The sales to listing ratio is determined by dividing the number of sales for the month by the number of newly listed homes. This ratio for March was 38 percent, which is consistent with last year. A ratio lower than 40 percent is considered a buyer’s market.

By comparison, the market surrounding Saskatoon, which includes rural residential property, the cities of Warman and Martensville and other smaller bedroom communities, has experienced a 12 percent decrease in unit sales year-to-date. The number of combined first quarter sales in the cities of Martensville and Warman has been declining steadily over the past three years. In 2014 year-to-date sales were 134 units, 107 units had been sold by this time in 2015, and in 2016 the total number of unit sales by the end of March was 82. The average price for a home in Warman this year is $373,000 compared to $327,000 in Martensville while the median price is $359,450 and $318,759 respectively. In Warman and Martensville the average days to sell was 55 and 59 respectively.

Jason Yochim CAE, CRAE Chief Executive Officer - Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS®

End of release.

Changes to the MLS® Home Price Index in Saskatoon over time

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