Spring Home Sales Show Positive Increase
Residential home sales in Saskatoon were 6.7% higher than April of last year with 335 units selling last month. This represents a third of home sales in Saskatoon so far this year. Although the year to date sales for the first four months of 2018 is down 4.8% over the same period in 2017, last month’s increase in sales helped to close the gap. The increase in April sales also was a welcome reversal of a two month trend of declining sales for February and March. Unit sales for April showed increases for homes priced under $350,000. Of the 202 sales in April under $350,000, 73 were condominiums. Homes that sold between $400,000 and $450,000 showed a 30% increase in sales in April over the same month last year with 39 sales. Homes that are properly priced in that entry level have been seeing competing offers in many cases.
Also of note, year to date there have only been two residential sales over $1M in Saskatoon compared with six for the first four months in 2017. The number of active residential properties for sale in Saskatoon at the end of April was 1,834 units. This is consistent with the five year average of 1,830. This is largely due to a decrease in the number of new listings brought to the market. The number of new listings for the first third of 2018 was 2,594 compared to 3,024. This represents more than a 14% decline year over year.
The sales to listing ratio increased to 43% from 37% a year ago. The sales to listing ratio is a comparison of the number of sales for a period of time to the number of new listings. Although the sales to listing ratio is moving towards balance, we are still in a buyer’s market. The increase in this ratio in April was largely due to the 6.5% reduction in new listings and the comparative 6.7% increase in sales. Last month, the average home in Saskatoon took 53 days to sell compared with the five year average of 47 days.
The average sale price saw its first increase this year by 1.75% to $318,729 in April. For the first quarter of 2018, the average home sale price in Saskatoon was $333,826. Since averages can be misleading, a better reflection of the market is the median. The median home sale price increased slightly from March to $320,000. The five year average for median residential home sale prices in Saskatoon is $332,650.
