Rate timing is genuinely difficult to predict, and a buyer who waits a year for a rate drop that does not materialize has simply paid more rent in the meantime while gaining nothing toward equity. A shorter fixed term now with a plan to refinance later is one way to hedge that uncertainty.
What waiting does not change is the minimum down payment requirement, 5 percent on the first $500,000 of the purchase price, so the money-saving benefit of waiting has to come specifically from the rate itself outweighing further price growth, which is not guaranteed.
With sales running 6.6 percent above the 10-year average, Saskatoon is not a market where waiting is obviously the safer bet. Get your hand-reviewed valuation from Joel Dyck.