Comment
Sometimes the Minneapolis duplex market is a bit like walking down an icy sidewalk. You may not look gracefull or pretty while traversing it, but if you don’t fall down, that’s good enough.
And for the week ending December 4, the real estate market didn’t fall down.
Twenty-six duplex, triplex and fourplex listings received and accepted purchase agreements for the week; up one from the same week in 2009.
Of those transactions, 15.4 percent involved traditional sellers; down ever so slightly from last year’s 16 percent.
However, the average off-market price for the week of $111,894 slipped a bit from last year’s sold average of $117,452.
There were 38 new investment properties listed for the week, down one from last year. Of these, 36.8 percent were offered by traditional sellers; representing a nearly 5 percent decline of market share week over week.
Meanwhile, pending single family home sales actually got a bit of traction, climbing 10 percent from the same week last year. That mark represents the first year-over-year increase in 30 weeks.
The amount of newly listed single family homes also found a bit of balance, dropping 13.8 percent from last year. This represents the 11th consecutive week of inventory decline.
Comment
There’s a lot of doom and gloom in the air today, and not all of it has to do with last night’s Viking loss.
Some of it has to do with today’s announcement by the National Association of Realtors that nationally, existing home sales fell in December. It wasn’t entirely unanticipated. Most economists thought the rush to beat the original November tax credit deadline might have an effect on December’s housing market. And it did.
So that’s the bad news. But there was some good news in the rest of the story.
See, while existing home sales fell 16.7 percent, they were still 15 percent higher than they were in December 2008.
More importantly perhaps, 4.9 percent more existing homes sold in 2009 than they did in 2008.
The national median home price was $178,300, which is again up over December 2008; albeit a slight 1.5 percent.
Of course, foreclosures and short sales, which represented 36 percent of all home sales last year continue to skew those median price numbers.
The Vikings had a sliver of good news too. Yesterday’s loss means they’ll get a better draft choice.
Comment
While the warm days of summer may have yet to arrive in the Twin Cities, the real estate market looks as if it might be time to break out the sun screen.
New listings and pending single family home sales jumped the week ending June 6. Newly signed purchase agreements were up 33.4 percent over the same week last year. And while new listings were up from their Memorial Day mark, they were still down 4.3 percent from the same stretch last year.
Almost every statistic in the single family home market points toward sunnier days. The Months Supply of Inventory has dropped to 7.6 months, and there the Supply/Demand Ration has dropped to five houses on the market for every buyer.
What’s more, the number of traditional home sales (properties owned by people, not banks) was up to 57 percent of all transactions in the month of May. In January of this year, only 40.6 percent of the single family homes sold did not involve a financial institution in the negotiations.
The duplex market also shone brightly for the week. For only the third time in the last year, the average off market price of pended properties was higher, at $125,939, than last year’s average of $115,123. While 89.3 percent of last year’s sales were lender mediated, the mark for the first week of June in 2009 was down slightly to 88.6 percent.
In other sunny news, the number of new listings coming on to the market for the week dropped 21.2 percent. While 67.7 percent of last year’s new inventory was bank owned, 58.7 percent of this year’s promise to involve a lender in negotiations.
After a long, rainy winter, it’s good to feel the warmth of the sun again; even if the forecast promises more rain.
Comment
Last week’s good news in MAAR’s Weekly Activity Report continued for single family home sales for the week ending January 31.
Want proof?
New listings are down 15.3 percent from this time last year.
Pending sales are 25 percent above the mark set by the comparable week in 2008. And, the months supply of inventory has dropped from 8.9 to 7.7 months. For those who don’t remember, a 5 month supply is considered a balanced market.
One figure we haven’t spoken of here is the Housing Affordability Index. It jumped to 202. What does that mean? Well, it means the median family income in the Twin Cities is 202 percent of what would be required to qualify for the median-priced home.
There’s continued good news in the small multi-family sector as well. Like single family, pending sales also jumped 25 percent. As 98 percent of these transactions were lender-mediated, the average off market price was a mere $94,820. The 2008 mark for the week was 91 percent lender-mediated, with an average sales price of $138,260.
The number of Minneapolis duplex listings also continues dropping; 16 percent for the week. Of particular interest is the fact that the percentage of properties involving lenders was down for the first time in ages, with 77 percent of the 2009 inventory involving a bank. For the same seven days in 2008, 83 percent of the new listings did.
Pending Congressional decisions regarding the president’s stimulus package, specifically the proposed $15,000 tax credit, should be resolved within days. A real estate market explosion may well follow.
1 Comment »
Has the housing market bottomed out yet?
I don’t know. Nobody else does either. It’s one of those things you realize only after you’ve driven past and notice it in the rear view mirror. And, statistically speaking, MAAR’s recently released Weekly Activity Report for the week ending August 16, suggests there may be some sunlight in addition to the dark clouds.
For the week ending August 16, MAAR reports the sales of single family homes were up 33 percent over the same week last year. That represents an increase of more than 200 units. Believe it or not, these numbers compare favorably to 2006; down just 2.5 percent from that record-breaking year.
The total number of new listings also dropped by 18.4 percent over last year’s figures, with the number of properties actively for sale in the marketplace a full 7.1 percent below 2007 inventory levels.
Of course, the duplex and small multi-family sale highway has actually been and continues to have more light and promise than it did in 2007. Duplex sales ending August 16 were up 233 percent over last year. While this year’s group of properties consisted of 85.7 percent lender-involved properties, this is actually down from recent weeks, when that figure was consistently above 90 percent. Last year at this time, just 62.5 percent of the transactions involved lenders.
While I don’t have hard data, there also appears to be an emerging pattern of properly priced owner-occupied type duplexes selling very quickly. Of course, this may simply be my gut, which is a bit like forecasting tomorrow’s weather by wetting my finger and holding it up in the wind.
Comment
OK, I’ve cleaned my ears, then hit “rewind” and “play” about six times now. And I could swear that Realty Times is reporting that the recently released Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller housing index indicates home prices were up in the Twin Cities. Nationally, only seven markets reported an increase.
Click on the Real Estate Outlook: Prices Up in Certain Cities and see if you hear it too.
For the actual statistics that contained in the national report, go to Standard & Poor’s and select the May, 2008 report.
