Minneapolis Duplex Sales: Nothing To Buy

Something’s happening in the Twin Cities house and duplex markets.

New duplex listings for the week e000 firstnding January 9, 2010, were down 36 percent from their market one year ago. Of these, a whopping 45 percent were listed by traditional sellers.

Over the last three months, the number of new single family home listings in Minneapolis and St Paul has dropped 11.7 percent from one year ago.

Less inventory is a good thing, right? Won’t that cause prices to go up?

Theoretically. However, for the week, the average off market price for a small multi-family property was $87,635.  The average sales price for the same stretch in 2009 was $124,989. That’s the first time in months the average off market price has dropped.

Here’s the other bit of befuddling news. In spite of the looming April 30 expiration of both the $8000 first time home buyers and $6500 repeat buyer tax credits, duplex sales were down 43.9 percent year over year.

The same trend is happening in the single family market. For the seventh time in nine weeks sales were down; this time 1.7 percent from 2009.

I have a theory. It isn’t scientific, but having been out in the field with buyers, I can say this: there’s nothing decent for them to buy.

Tough to have booming sales when the store shelves are empty.