If this was the canary in the coal mine… it just coughed.
It is a small sign but this is first signal that Saskatchewan’s residential real estate market may be changing.
The number of listings went up faster than the number of transactions in August, the first hint that sellers are losing control of the marketplace and buyers are gaining some ground.
Just over 1,500 homes changed hands last month but the number of listings grew by nearly 2,300 …inventory was finally increasing.
When you add in the carryover of properties on the market going into August, we started September with 80 more units available for sale than a month earlier. It is not a big move but it is finally a signal to buyers that things may be improving for them.
The province-wide benchmark price also fell slightly in August although that trend varied by community with only two cities seeing declines and two others actually set new record highs.
In broad terms, though, the market remains tight. At the current sales pace, without any new listings Regina and Saskatoon would exhaust their inventories in six or seven weeks.
