Duplex Sales Miss The Mark

Did the tax credit hit the mark and stimulate sales?

Looks like a bullseye.

For the week ending May 8, the first since the home buyer tax credits expired on April 30, Minneapolis and St Paul duplex pended sales were down 21.43 percent from the week before.

What’s interesting, however, is the number of transactions was roughly the same as they were for the same period of time last year;  dropping  just a single transaction year over year.

The average off market price for the week was $131,693. This was a significant leap from last year’s $93,809, in spite the fact that the percentage of traditional sellers increased their share of pended sales by just 3.56 percent year over year.

The number of duplexes new to the market for the week was down 3.3 percent from 2009. Of  these, a whopping 78 percent were brought to the market by traditional sellers. In the first week of May in 2009, traditional sellers represented a meager 6.6 percent of the new inventory.

Single family home sales saw a slight decline for the week, slipping 4.4 percent below their mark for last year. This was the first year-over-year decline since early March.