Glut of listings chills torrid Sask. housing market

The mercury might be rising in Saskatchewan lately, but the housing market is showing distinct signs of cooling down, industry observers say.

Amid a booming economy, house prices in Saskatchewan grew about 32 per cent last year and are projected to grow another 20 per cent this year. That's expected to be the biggest rise in Canada.

However, there has been an "unprecedented" number of houses going on the market in Saskatchewan in recent weeks, according to the Canadian Real Estate Association.

"Record numbers of new listings are creating more balanced resale housing markets in many centres, and nowhere has this trend been more evident than in Regina and Saskatoon," the association said in a news release last week.

"These were two of the tightest markets in Canada at the beginning of the year, but a surge in new listings and slowing sales activity put them among the most balanced of major resale housing markets in May."

It's a different market than it was a few months ago, agrees Gord Archibald, the executive officer of the Association of Regina Realtors.

"We've actually seen a flattening out of the market for the last couple of months compared to what we saw in the beginning of '07," Archibald said. "There's been quite an influx of new supply come on the market so it's caused less of a frenzy from what we had seen, and it's providing more time for buyers to make their buying decision."

Buyers in Regina are now rarely bidding up above the asking price, Archibald said. Even if the overall number of sales is down, it isn't necessarily bad news for sellers, he said.

"The average price is holding, so we're not seeing a retraction as far as property values are concerned," he said.

The trend is similar to what's happening in Saskatoon, he said. The rebalancing of the market is expected to continue for the next few months, Archibald said.