Minneapolis Duplex Sales Act Like The Weather

Since the April 30 expiration of the first time home buyer’s tax credit, the Minneapolis duplex market has acted like it was winter.

Sales slowed. New listings slowed. And, well, now that it actually is winter, the market behavior almost appears “normal” in its behavior.

Whatever that is.

This doesn’t mean that we’re back on track; just that we’re now in a time of year where this slowing is typical.

In the week ending November 13, 2010, twenty-nine duplex owners accepted offers on their properties. Just 27.6 percent of these transactions did not involve a bank in the negotiations.

While this represents a 28 percent decline in pended sales from the same week last year, the good news is that just 18.75 percent of last year’s transactions involved traditional sellers.

The average off-market price this year was $133,336, while for the same week last year the sold price was just $117,259. As always, pended prices are different from sold prices, so this apparent jump in value isn’t necessarily something to cheer about just yet.

The number of new duplexes to the market was also up; leaping past last year’s mark by 15 percent. Of these new listings, 57.9 percent were offered by traditional sellers; 9.4 percent more than last year.

Over in the single family home market, pended sales for the week were down 4.3 percent from year ago levels. The number of new listings also dropped slightly, decreasing 5.3 percent from last year.

Fewer single family home sales should ultimately help shrink the bloated inventory of homes, which is up 10.4 percent from last year’s levels.

This sort of thing is typical in November, which, I suppose, is cause for celebration