The Good News and the Bad News in the Minneapolis Duplex Market

MAAR s released its weekly report of market activity this morning, and in spite of all the doom and gloom in the media, pending home sales for the week ending were nonetheless 16.9 percent higher than they were over the same period in 2007. This has been a trend for some time. In fact, over the last three months, sales have been 26.6 percent higher than the same time in 2007 .‘

The first time home buyer is the engine that leads the housing train. And it looks like the wheels in that market have started to turn. Of course, lender-mediated foreclosures and short sales are fueling the market, with 54.4 percent of the transactions that week lender-mediated. However, a full 43.2 percent of those properties were priced below $150,000.

While pending sales of multi-family properties were down 44 percent from their mark for the week ending November 1, the average list price of those properties that received purchase agreements was $130,408. This is the third week in a row we’ve seen a significant jump in that number, coupled with a comparable drop in the average sales price for the same week last year; now down to $162,673.

What’s more, sales for the week were a robust 188 percent ahead of the mark for last year. Of the 32 duplexes that received purchase agreements, 84 percent involved lender mediated sales. In 2007, 75 percent of the properties that received purchase agreements were lender-mediated.

For the first time in months, new duplex listings year over year were up 167.5 percent over the same stretch last year. Supply in the single family home market, however, seems to have leveled off; down from last year, but holding.