Minneapolis Duplex Market Continues To Tighten

If it seems like there’s a shortage of Minneapolis duplexes for sale, it’s because there is.

Perhaps it’s because for many weeks we’ve seen statistics like this:

For the week ending January 14, 2012, there were 20 new duplex, triplex and quadraplex listings to the Minneapolis MLS.

During the same week in 2011, there were 40 new listings.

In other words, the amount of new inventory for the week had dropped by half.

In both cases, exactly half of that new inventory was brought to the market by traditional sellers– as in people who didn’t need permission from a bank to sell.

Ironically, there were just 14 Minneapolis and St Paul duplexes where sellers received and accepted purchase agreements the second week of January. Only one of these duplex owners decided to sell without bank interference.

On average, these properties pended at a list price of $78,299.

This number is down from that week in 2011, when 20 duplexes pended or sold on the MLS. Of these sellers, just less than one-third had equity in their property.

These sellers received an average sales price of $136,920.

Single family home listings followed duplexes, reporting a 5.2 percent decline in the number of new listings to hit the market. In all, there are 23.8 percent fewer homes for buyers to choose from than there were last year.

Pending sales, however, were up 29.4 percent.

The tightening market has yet to impact sales price in an upward direction.

Can’t wait to see what spring brings.