By Norm Fisher September 4, 2013 - The Saskatoon Region Association of Realtors® (SRAR) released the MLS® residential real estate statistics for August of 2013 today accompanied by the following release. Please note that many of the association’s comments touch on “year-to-date” numbers, and some are based on all sales within the board’s trading area.
For the second year in a row the gross dollar volume for home sales exceeded $1 billion by the end of summer. At this rate the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS® is on track to break the $2 billion mark by year end. The number of units sold year-to-date was down by 2 precent in 2013 however an increase in the average selling price of 4 percent boosted the yearly volume by $25 million over the same period last year. “Listing activity is up 8 percent over last year thanks in part to 1,125 new properties added to the market last month versus 936 in August of 2012,” according to Jason Yochim, Executive Officer with the Saskatoon Region Association of REALTORS®. “There are currently 3,118 properties for sale in the Saskatoon region and 1,373 within Saskatoon.”
The average sale price in Saskatoon was up 4 percent from last year at this time to just under $345,000. “We are actually in balanced territory with 54 percent of listed properties selling. With the number of new listings up almost 10 percent over last year and the number of sales unchanged, we can expect this balanced market to continue for the foreseeable future,” comments Yochim. “A steady supply of new listings will help to ensure that our demand does not put a sharp upward pressure on pricing.”
Home sales between $300,000 and $500,000 continue to increase at the greatest rate, accounting for approximately one half of all sales. Sales between $450,000 and $500,000 increased 30 percent over the first two-thirds of the year. In recent years there has been a growing interest in farmland in Saskatchewan which has driven prices to unprecedented levels, however, activity is down this year with farmland transactions at 55 percent of what they were a year ago. “The dollar volume for farmland so far this year is at $14.5 million compared to 24 million in 2012. It’s hard to say what caused the sharp decrease, however, it could be due to prices reaching levels that no longer make sense to the investor,” states Yochim.
Copyright Norm Fisher Royal LePage Saskatoon Real Estate