Saskatoon real estate: Week in review (April 27–May 1 2009)
Following two fairly brisk sales weeks, Saskatoon real estate sales softened some as local agents reported just seventy-seven sales of single-family detached houses and condominiums to the Saskatoon MLS system. This week’s numbers were down by eleven units compared to last week and fell shy of the units recorded during the same week last year by fifteen homes.
New listings were up just slightly over last week to one hundred and thirty six homes, and well below last year’s number of two hundred and twenty eight. The typical batch of month end expired listings caused the total residential inventory of Saskatoon homes for sale to fall from 1,472 last week to 1,410 this morning but strong renewals and soft sales of Friday brought them back to 1,439 by the end of the day. At the close of business today, eight hundred and sixty five houses and four hundred and eighty-six condominiums are displaying an active status on our MLS system.
Click the image for a larger version of the graph.
Eighty-nine home sellers adjusted their price this week in hopes of attracting a buyer. An additional twenty-eight homes were canceled and re-listed, most at a new price.
The average selling price of a Saskatoon home took a $5,000 decline compared to last week slipping to $280,117 while the six-week average and the four-week median both increased again. The six-week average moved up to $276,929, recording its fourth consecutive week-over-week gain and reaching its highest level since the final week of February. Still, this price measure remained lower than it was during this week last year by just over $26,000. Meanwhile, the four-week median took a slightly larger gain growing $4,500 over last week to finish at $264,450 and reaching its highest level since the first week of March. Once again, year-over-year losses were recorded but at a much smaller number than compared to recent weeks. It’s down $15,750 from the same week in 2008.
Click the image for a larger version of the graph.
Two home sellers managed to complete a sale at a price higher than list and those two sales generated an average overbid of $20,550. Both of the overbid properties were new homes so the agreed upon price may have included additional value. Another seven sellers got their price, while sixty-six others came to the negotiating table and sliced an average of $12,718, or 4.3 percent from their asking price to close the deal.
See a Google map displaying the boundaries of Saskatoon real estate “areas” here
Data collection and calculation for our statistical reports
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Norm Fisher
Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate
There's 12 Comments So Far
May 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
“Housing market ’stabilizing’: official”
http://www.thestarphoenix.com/Business/Housing+market+stabilizing+official/1556766/story.html
I like that: ‘official’. That’s definitely getting creative; 2 points for the SP. I wouldn’t say a drop of 250 houses from last year is “significant”, though; at best it represents several weeks to one month of inventory.
“”It has given opportunity again to the first-time home buyer who was literally edged out of the market,” said Janzen.” I’d also tend to disagree with this comment. If it wasn’t for continuing low interest rates propping up unit sales and average housing prices I think we’d be under a $250k average. And then at that point the first-time buyer might actually have some opportunities. The comment about multiple offers is also highly misleading; 2-3 properties with multiple offers does not a trend establish.
But I digress. Like the new colors on the graphs, Norm. It looks less and less likely that we’re going to see a ’surge’ of new listings in late Spring. I can’t help but think a lot of sellers are staying out of the market with prices having softened; either they’re waiting on the sidelines for signs of improvement (higher selling prices, more buyers, fewer sellers) before listing or perhaps the 1,400+ listings accurately represents people that need to sell. I’m not going to rule out a late Summer surge – especially if we see housing prices decline over the next few months.
Looks like we’ll be waiting until 2010 for a substantial correction.
May 2nd, 2009 at 3:57 pm
From the May 1 editorial of TAE. Highlights here…
“For a happier life, shake off your misplaced optimism. It has been clear for a while, at least since the first talk started about “green shoots” of recovery, that what we have to fear above all is hope. Attempts to trust that the worst is over and to stop frightening ourselves seem doomed to project us into yet worse disappointment. We are not only unhappy but – believing calm and happiness to be the norm – unhappy that we are unhappy.” -:- “No one should make an investment, undertake to run a company, sit on a board or leave money in a bank without an awareness … of the darkest possibilities” -:- “Nothing ought to be unexpected by us. Our minds should be sent forward in advance to meet all the problems, and we should consider, not what is wont to happen, but what can happen.”
May 3rd, 2009 at 9:52 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.
May 3rd, 2009 at 3:59 pm
-:- “No one should make an investment, undertake to run a company, sit on a board or leave money in a bank without an awareness … of the darkest possibilities” -:-
Hmmm. I understand the logic behind that editorial, Jason, but hasn’t the strategy of “hoping for the best and preparing for the worst” always been prudent? I’m all for taking all possibilities into account, but one has to walk this line delicately… I don’t want to get “frozen in the headlights”, either. I have to say that I find that “fearing hope” line very hard to swallow- we still need to live our lives and move forward, yes? Hope and delusion are not the same thing, nor are they necessarily dependent on each other. I would agree with the idea that those hoping for a quick return to the “boom mirage economy” circa 2006-2007 are in for a bit of a shock, but there’s always things to be hopeful for.
May 4th, 2009 at 1:05 am
Crikey, for some it has, most definitely. I think the implication is to be wary of false hope (and not hope itself). At least that’s what I took away from it. Using your “deer in the headlights”, I think this is a good analogy for first time homebuyers. There are a lot of good reasons to remain on the sidelines, the least of which is that housing prices are set to fall faster in value than any increase in interest rates will offset. It was completel irresponsibility that got us into this mess in the first place; continued recklessness without any fiscal restraint is going to land us in an even bigger one.
Rick had some excellent points in his other post, so I’ll just quote one line here which I particularly agree with: “I think we would be just as far ahead if we came to terms with the situation, and planned our best defense.”
And no worries Norm (it was particularly nice this weekend).
May 5th, 2009 at 8:26 am
“Looks like we’ll be waiting until 2010 for a substantial correction.”
Yes Luke, leave the darkside…
May 5th, 2009 at 8:37 am
Did interest in the Saskatoon real estate market just dry up over the last week or so?
Hardly any comments on the blog, Monday had 0 houses sold and 50 listed, and Friday May 1st had 32 listings and only 7 sales? What’s going on Norm?
How often does that happen that there is a day with no sales? Probably more common than I realize, huh?
Are the comments working properly?
May 5th, 2009 at 9:59 am
Lou,
I was mucking around beneath the hood of this blog and caused some issues with comments which I believe I have sorted out this morning. You’re looking at everything that’s been submitted but there’s no doubt that my fiddling has interrupted the flow of conversation.
Sales? Strange indeed to be sitting at the 5th with only seven sales reported. Could be that real estate agents are taking every spare moment to play while it’s warm thinking that their sales reports can wait. I don’t ever recall a day where there were no sales reported. Maybe someone has been “mucking around” under the hood of the MLS.
My sense about business is just the opposite of what you see in the numbers over the past few days. Lyndon and I have both been putting in additional hours to get everything done.
I won’t panic too much, unless the current trend continues through today.
May 5th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
L.oki, “You don’t know the power of the dark side!” We’ll talk again at the end of the month and see where the numbers stand…
Norm, 7 sales on Friday, nothing on Monday (!) and it doesn’t sound like much today, either… “Ouch!” indeed. We may see that surge (by default) yet…
May 5th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
21 sales today. Still not great for the first two days of the week but you can never get a good feel from such a short period of time. There was a pretty good stack of deals that came into our office this morning. We’ll have to see how things shake out by the weekend.
May 5th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
There was a bungalow for sale on maguire crt that I was watching and it dissapeared from mls recently. (Sorry I dont have the address or mls #) It was listed at 469900 I believe. Norm could you let me know if it sold or expired or whatnot. I would appreciate it. Thanks. I believe it was 1400 and some sq ft and built in 2004.
May 5th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Derek,
It expired on 4/30.