It was a record year for housing sales in Saskatchewan in 2021 despite the on-going COVID-19 pandemic.

Last year, the province saw 17,387 homes sold, that surpasses the previous record set in 2007 by 17 per cent. Saskatchewan Realtors Association CEO, Chris Guerette says Saskatoon saw 5,403 homes sold in 2021. Saskatoon not only reached record highs but was 19 per cent higher than the previous record set back in 2014.

Guerette says 2022 will present some challenges.

“Inflationary pressures, you know we’re going to have some higher interest rates. They’re going to start going up in Q2, Q3. We have a shortage of labour that’s happening in construction right now. When you couple that with the supply chain challenges that we have that’s still quite clunky compared to what we had pre-pandemic, it’s taking that much longer to actually bring a house to market.”

Regina also posted record high sales in 2021, although inventory sales in the Queen City have not declined as much as in Saskatoon. Last year, inventory sales declined by four per cent on average, but levels remain consistent with long-term trends.

Every region in the province hit a record level of sales in 2021, except for the Southeast region. All regions did however record significant gains in sales as were all above the long-term averages for their region.

Estevan was the only bigger hub the province to continue seeing a price drop in 2021. According to the SRA, tightening conditions in the Energy City did start to help support some upward price movement causing the pace of price decline to ease.

Strong sales in Saskatoon and falling supply levels resulted in an-average of about three months worth of supply throughout the year in the Bridge City.