Saskatoon Real Estate Numbers April 2011

SRAR is out with their media release for April 2011.  It can be found here.
Prices are up by 6% year over year, but sales are down. 

The increase in the average selling price indicates strong sales activity in the mid to upper price range.

Actually, sales for this April were the worst April since 2006.  It was not drastic, but it was not 2007 or 2008 either.

An important factor of a strong housing market is the activity experienced in new home sales. Saskatoon’s new home market remains strong with steady city lot sales taking place. Interest rates are favorable to purchase that next home and job creation in the Saskatoon area remains steady. The forecast for the remainder of 2011 is for listing and sales numbers to continue to balance and for resale prices to move up slightly due to demand.

People are confident in the economy now and in the future, that is why people are willing to pile on the debt to get into the housing market.  What if that confidence is falsely misguided? 

While the population grew by 2%, Job creation is steady? Where? According to Stats Can, ( page 44) there were 4300 less employed people in March 2011 compared to March 2010 in Saskatoon.  In 2009, 8.1% of all jobs in Saskatoon were construction, since then, construction jobs have taken off and this number could be close to 10% now.  A diverse economy should have between 5-6% of all jobs in construction.  What happens when construction jobs revert back to the mean when the "boom" ends?  We will find out that the housing market is not so strong after all.