Housing sales expected to increase in Saskatchewan despite tariff, economic uncertainty. (ID 472773 © Publicimage | Dreamstime.com)

By Derek Cornet

robust market

Sask. housing sales increase as numbers fall nationally due to market uncertainty

Apr 15, 2025 | 5:12 PM

The Saskatchewan home sales forecast is telling a much different story than what is being realized across Canada.

The Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) downgraded its forecast for home sales this year, while it also reported Tuesday the number of homes that changed hands across the country in March fell 9.3 per cent compared with a year ago. The association reported Canadian home sales in March also fell 4.8 per cent on a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis from February, as potential buyers stayed on the sidelines amid concerns over tariffs and economic uncertainty.

Year-over-year in March, home sales were down 23 per cent in Toronto, 19 per cent in Calgary and 10 per cent in Vancouver. That’s not the case in Saskatchewan where March marked the 21st consecutive month of above average sales.

“That’s a streak that now dates back to the summer of 2023, so we’re picking up right where we left off after what was a near record 2024,” said Cole Zawislak, the Director of Public Affairs and Communications with the Saskatchewan REALTORS Association.

“Our province is growing at a record pace. We just hit 1.25 million people, so again more people calling Saskatchewan home. I think we have seen governments of all stripes rise to occasion here on the housing front. We’ve seen a number of policies federally, provincially, municipally to support housing and I think that has been long overdue and certainly welcome news.”

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Zawislak expects home sales in Saskatchewan to continue to grow throughout the remainder of 2025. He explained Saskatchewan is among, if not the most, affordable province in the country to call home when it comes to housing prices and the cost of the living.

The benchmark price in March 2025 for a house in Saskatchewan sits at $353,600. That’s up 6.3 per cent year-over-year.

“I think our biggest concern or challenge leading into these busy spring and summer months is whether there is enough inventory out there to service the demand we are seeing,” Zawislak noted.

“We know talking to agents with boots on the ground the demand is absolutely there. It’s going to be whether our current inventory and housing stock can keep up to that demand.”

While Regina and Saskatoon make up a significant portion of market activity, there is also increased activity outside of those two major cities. There are inventory challenges in Moose Jaw, Humboldt and Melfort where that city, for example, is down 80 per cent year-over-year in March.

“We know we’ve seen prices, depending on the market, spike considerably through this period of increased demand and dwindling supply. We likely expect that to continue,” Zawislak said.

In its revised forecast, CREA now expects a total of 482,673 residential properties to be sold this year across the nation, essentially unchanged from 2024, but a steep cut from its forecast in January which predicted an 8.6 per cent increase.

The change marked the largest revision by CREA in between its quarterly forecasts since the 2008-2009 financial crisis, the association said.

– with files from The Canadian Press

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derek.cornet@pattisonmedia.com