JOSH BUCHANAN May 1, 2024 With 522 total residential sales for the month of April, it stands as one of the busiest April’s on record. That amount of sales equates to a 29% increase in sales compared to last year and a 34% increase compared to the 10-year average for April. 728 new listings were added to the market over the course of the month which is up slightly from last year and from the 5-year average. The current level of standing inventory as of April 30th was 850. However, of those 850 units, 256 are already conditionally sold. Compared to last year, there are 216 fewer units currently ..read more

April 2, 2024 March stats are posted and surprisingly, this March had the least amount of sales since March of 2020 when the world went on lock down. There were 364 total sales for the month which is down by 33 from last March and there were 540 new listings which is down by 42 units compared to last March. The biggest change compared to last year is that the total standing inventory at the end of the month in Saskatoon was 777 units compared to 973 at this time last year. Here’s a look at March 2024 compared to the past 5 years: If I had to guess why this March was slower than the past 3 yea ..read more

JOSH BUCHANAN March 22, 2024 Back in January 2017, I wrote a post entitled “The Best Month to Sell Your home.” This post analyzed which month of the year is the best to sell based purely on the statistics. I figured, what better way to spend my Friday night than revisiting this topic to see if this trend has changed at all in recent years. For starters, the best time to sell is not clear-cut and it’s very much dependent on the situation of the individual seller. However, I still think it’s interesting to analyze this based purely on statistics to determine which month regularly sees the highes ..read more

March 1, 2024 February stats are now in the books and the first two words that come to mind are “competitive” and “horrible.” Competitive because the number of new sales relative to new listings was 71% which is the highest ratio for the month of February since 2008. With just 727 units for sale on the market at the end of the month, there was a months-of-inventory ratio of 2.35 which is very low both in terms of historical averages and compared to what’s considered a balanced market. Also, about 165 of the 727 current listings are already conditionally sold. Horrible because I feel bad for an ..read more

JOSH BUCHANAN February 8, 2024 Below are a few questions that came to mind pertaining to the local residential real estate market with my responses following. Hopefully, these are useful to some people. Please feel free to ask any additional questions in the comment section at the bottom of the post or via email. Is the market slowing down? No. 2023 was the third-busiest year on record for residential sales in Saskatoon and January 2024 was the third-busiest January on record. The market has been consistently active since around June of 2022. What’s happening with home prices? Because the mark ..read more

JOSH BUCHANAN February 5, 2024 Local Mortgage Professional and Podcast Host of The Saskatchewan Real Estate Podcast, Ron Quaroni, recently interviewed me to discuss the best methods for analyzing the real estate market and some of the other metrics that are not as useful. Have a watch! — Please support the blog by subscribing, sharing, commenting, sending an email or donation to jcb8485@gmail.com ..read more

JOSH BUCHANAN February 1, 2024 The new year was off to an unusually warm start, both in terms of weather and also in residential real estate activity. January saw 245 total units sold which makes it the third-busiest January on record with just 2007 and 2021 having more units sold in the month. New listings fell by 50 compared to last year and 142 compared to the 5-year average. The inventory level remains extremely low in the city, both relative to historical averages and relative to current sales. As of the end of January, there were 695 units actively listed for sale which is down by 235 fr ..read more

JOSH BUCHANAN January 12, 2024 -Is Saskatoon housing affordable because the nominal price is lower than other major centers? -Is Saskatoon housing unaffordable because prices are up compared to 5 years ago? -Is Saskatoon housing affordable because the ratio of average home price to average household income is lower than other major centers? -Is Saskatoon housing unaffordable because wages are not increasing at the rate that home prices are increasing? -Is Saskatoon housing affordable because some home prices aren’t much higher today than they were 10 years ago? -Is Saskatoon housing unaffordab ..read more

JOSH BUCHANAN January 6, 2024 The biggest issue with the housing market in Saskatchewan right now is the inventory shortage. There simply is not enough building in the province to accommodate the population growth which is making it harder and harder to find housing and is driving up the price of ownership and renting. Here’s a look at what is happening with the population of the province for the first 6 months of 2023 based on the most recent report from the provincial government: Source: Government of Saskatchewan In summary, the population of the province increased by 14,238 people in just ..read more

JOSH BUCHANAN January 6th, 2024 With so much uncertainty in the market, I really don’t like making predictions anymore. It was a lot easier back in 2015-2017 when market conditions were clearly weakening. Here’s what I’m currently thinking for 2024: 1. Low Inventory I think that low inventory is going to remain a problem in 2024 for a few reasons: 1) inventory is very slow moving and it basically takes some kind of shock to the system for it to change in the short-term. We currently aren’t building enough to satisfy demand and I don’t see that changing. 2) I think population growth will remain ..read more