Saskatoon real estate should tighten up again with the dramatic housing start decrease in 2009. Regina real estate will also see the same thing as they also had a huge drop in housing starts. Not only are Saskatoon realtors trying to juggle the overabundance of listings, Saskatoon home builders are also dealing with their high inventory. The decreases were fully expected announces Paul Caton, CMHC market analyst in Saskatchewan, but they do expect an increase in 2010. What is happening in the current Saskatoon real estate market is there are a lot of resale houses for sale in Saskatoon. This means less work for the home buyer and often times less money for an almost new house for sale in Saskatoon. Saskatoon builders have only started 77 single-detached houses this year which is down from 284 new home starts in Saskatoon just last year down 73%. In March these starts fell 75% to 32 units down from 128 new housing starts in Saskatoon in March of 2008, but keep in mind that March 2008 was one of the strongest months on record for new housing in Saskatoon to be started.
As for multi-family dwellings in Saskatoon only 12 have been started this year, down 96% from 2008 and the lowest number since 1991. Last year 306 multi-family units were started in the first quarter.
Regina is much the same with Regina builders only breaking ground on 42 new houses in Regina in March, down 40% from last March. There are only 117 new houses in Regina that have been started in the first quarter and multiple units were down 90%.
Saskatchewan in general is down 73% with 257 units from 948 units last year for the first quarter.
What does this mean? House prices should remain stable and strong and we should only see a modest decrease this year and potentially some increases in house prices in the next year in some Saskatchewan real estate markets.
For more information on the Saskatoon real estate market be sure to contact me!
Kari Calder
Saskatoon Real Estate Agent
Century 21 Conexus Realty Ltd.