September 02, 2020
For immediate release
Although the August real estate market appears to be slowing down compared with June and July, we still see signs of strength. Across the province, year-over-year sales were up over 46% from August of last year (and up over 14% year-to-date), new listings were up nearly 5% year-over-year (but down just over 9% year-to-date), and the median sale price was up over 7% (up 0.2% year-to-date). Inventories were also down in 18 of the 19 markets that the SRA tracks. This suggests that people are still quite eager to buy and are continuing to find value in real estate.
“While there have been some COVID outbreaks across the province, the number of cases has been pretty small” said SRA CEO Jason Yochim, “and this doesn’t seem to have turned people off from buying and selling real estate.” The fact that we had two months of slow activity and that “we’ve almost made up all of that lost ground is simply amazing,” said Yochim.
Median sales prices were up in 14 of the 19 markets that the SRA tracks (with Yorkton and the broader region seeing the strongest declines), while the number of sales in all markets jumped anywhere from just under 4% to close to 226% (except for in Melfort, which saw sales fall 10%). Again, this strong performance suggests that the sector has recovered from the devastation of the pandemic and that real estate is quite resilient.
June’s and July’s strong performance suggested that August would also be a strong month. As children start returning to school in September and the weather starts to get colder, however, we expect activity to slow down and fall off into Q4.
“August tends to be when things start to slow down a little,” said Yochim, “but we’re still hearing reports of multiple offers and of houses being sold almost as soon as they’re listed.”
Although things are starting to “slow down” compared with earlier in the year, the market is in line with historical trends—and we still see generally strong performance.
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For interviews and more information:
Samantha Krahn
Director of External & Government Relations
Saskatchewan REALTORS® Association
306.229.4048