Minneapolis Duplex Sales Need Rain

The Minneapolis and St Paul duplex market continued to suffer a drought of new inventory the week ending July 21, 2012.

While there were 31 new listings for the week, which sounds as if it should be a positive number, it actually represents 24.3 percent fewer duplex, triplex and four unit investment opportunities for buyers.

Of the listings to hit the market, 54.8 percent are being sold by traditional sellers. This represents a slight increase of the 46.3 percent of equity sellers for the week in 2011.

Perhaps the best news of all, however, is that 41.2 percent of the property owners who accepted purchase agreements that week did not need permission from anyone at a bank in order to do so. This is up dramatically from the 14.3 percent of last year’s sellers who could say the same.

Of course, fewer bank owned or negotiated transactions usually result in higher prices. This was certainly true for the week, with the average off-market list price at $209,553. This is double the average sold price of $104,231  for the same week one year ago.

Single family home buyers also found themselves doing a rain dance for houses to look at, with overall inventory down 30.7 percent. Meanwhile, pending sales were up 22.7 percent, putting even more pressure on an already withering crop of inventory.