7 comments so far. We'd love to hear your thoughts.

• Rick
  May 1st, 2009 at 9:00 PM

  It seems the new key word describing all things economic in Saskatchewan is “but”. Yes our economy is slowing “but” we are still outperforming the rest of Canada. Yes house sales are down from ’07 and ’08 “but” they are still ahead of ’05 and ’06. There also ahead of 1947 but what does that have to do with anything. It reminds me of the person who admits they play bingo “but” they interject that they don’t drink or smoke. If I’m interpreting these graphs correctly, it looks like unit sales peaked in ’07 and unit prices peaked in ’08. It looks like next month there is an excellent chance that sales will fall below ’05 and ’06 but you got it, we may still be ahead of ’04, if we are I wonder if they will make us aware of that. I feel that Saskatchewan is like the last car on a roller coaster,if we are, then of course were on the way down, and when manufacturing jurisdictions return to the top guess where we will be. There are a whole lot of people here who suffer with the “little province that could” insecurity. Like the little train who said “I think I can” “I think I can” it seems that if enough people stay in denial we will avoid recession. I think we would be just as far ahead if we came to terms with the situation, and plannned our best defence. There is a small business owner I know who sees the slow down coming, he has ramped up his sales force, knowing that all his competitors are not going to be able to survive, he plans on taking their market share and emerging better after the resession ends then when it began. Sounds like economics 101, sure a lot better then propaganda 101. When people realize that houses in Kelowna, Victoria, Costa Rica or even condos and high end homes here in Saskatoon have fallen in price they likely will re-evaluate and return to the market with a lower listing price. I mean if they can buy that much lower then they will justify that they can sell that much lower, which will continue our downward slide in prices. When people sell, I think they often have the idea of up sizing, down sizing or moving to another city.

• kinjikii
  May 1st, 2009 at 9:32 PM

  My favorite line is definitely “Buyers had 1499 properties to select from, down substantially from a market high of 1748 homes for sale in September 2008.”

  September 2008?! What an (un)biased month to be comparing to. Classic spin, althought the trendline for current listing is certainly not looking as crazy as it did at this time last year. As always, thanks for the graphs Norm, they are a great way to be helpful (and honest) in providing context to the report.

  As an aside, I just paid a 5500 dollar penalty to get out of a 5 year fixed rate mortgage at 6.15% to switch to a 10 year fixed at 5.15%. Could have gotten a much better rate on a 5 year rate of course, but I really believe that rates 5 years from now are going to be substantially higher than 5.15 and I’m willing to put my money where my proverbial mouth is. Call me crazy… I know some of you are probably itching to.

• Robin
  May 3rd, 2009 at 12:23 AM

  “Consumer confidence in the local economy, low interest rates and a sustained job market will all contribute to a quicker real estate market recovery.”

  RECOVERY?!? I’m still waiting for the decline!

  ; )

• Norm Fisher
  May 3rd, 2009 at 9:50 AM

  Just did a bit of a breakdown on sales by price range for April that I thought some may find interesting.

  Under $100,000 – 2

  $100,001 – $150,000 – 30

  $150,001 – $200,000 – 47

  $200,001 – $250,000 – 73

  $250,001 – $300,000 – 77

  $300,001 – $350,000 – 61

  $350,001 – $400,000 – 27

  $400,001 – $450,000 – 17

  $450,001 – $500,000 – 9

  $500,001 – $550,000 – 5

  $550,001 – $600,000 – 1

  $600,001 – $650,000 – 2

  $650,001 – $700,000 – 1

  $700,001 – $750,000 – 1

• Norm Fisher
  May 3rd, 2009 at 9:51 AM

  Apologies for the delay in having your comments appear. I thought you all were out enjoying the beautiful weather yesterday. Turns out that something was broken and I just noticed it this morning.

• Cindy
  May 4th, 2009 at 7:02 PM

  Interesting breakdown. Looks like mostly first timers or those that were priced out before. Sort of what I expected, but nice to quantify it with data.

  Thanks Norm

• Norm Fisher
  May 4th, 2009 at 10:16 PM

  Hey Cindy,

  I was actually surprised to see such strong activity above the $300K mark.

  It will be interesting to see where the market goes. I hear many of the major markets west of here are really picking up some steam.

  No sales reported in Saskatoon today, which is extremely odd. Perhaps they were shorthanded at SRAR but they did manage to get 50 new listings on the system today.