Minneapolis Duplex Sales Marvel-Ous

Like comic book super heroes, Minneapolis and St Paul duplex sales took off the week ending May 12, 2012.

Thirty-three cape-wearing duplex, triplex and four unit building owners accepted offers during the week; 54.5 percent of which did not need to call the bank for permission.

Compare this to last year’s Clark Kent-ish numbers, when just 25 Minneapolis investment property owners accepted offers; of which a mousey 32 percent were equity owners.

The number of new listings coming onto the market continued to be less heroic, however. There were just 25 new duplex opportunities for buyers, with 68 percent of them brought to market by traditional sellers.

Last year, there were 36 new duplex listings, with 41.6 percent of them being listed with property owners who were not in distressed situations.

This dynamic duo of increased duplex buyer activity and little new inventory ka-p0wed last year’s average sold price for the week of $133,604, finishing at an average off-market list price of $179,588. Granted, odds are when those transactions are finally closed and booked as sold, the average price will likely be about 8 percent less ($165,229.95), but it’s still a dramatic improvement over last year.

The single family home market also experienced a Wonder Woman-like transformation, spinning around to finish the month with a median sales price up 12.1 percent to $162,500.

Meanwhile, for the second week in May, pending sales leaped up 18.9 percent, while new listings dropped 11.8 percent.

This one-two punch further cemented this as a seller’s market, with just 4.7 months of inventory currently available. (A balanced market is when there is a 5-6 month supply.)

While this is all wonderful news for our market-decline crusaders, it’s important to remember no matter the comic, villians have a way of springing back to life.

We’re not at our happy ending yet.