Minneapolis Duplex Sellers Apply Sunscreen

February’s the time of year when many Minnesotans flee the state in search of warmer climates.

Apparently this year, all of the Minneapolis and St Paul duplex sellers went with them.

Last year during the same week, 20 multifamily property sellers in the Twin Cities accepted offers. Most of these (70 percent) were actually banks or involved talking to one in order to sell.For the week ending February 2,2013, 23 duplex, triplex and fourplex owners received and accepted purchase agreements on their MLS listed properties. Of these, 65.2 percent were people who didn’t need to get a bank’s permission to sell.

Of course, as is usually the case,  the more traditional sellers in the marketplace, the higher the average sales price. This week was no exception, with the 23 duplexes leaving the market at an average list price of $160,846 compared with last year’s average sold price of $144,523.

The scarcity of new listings continued to be problematic, with just 17 new investment opportunities coming n the market. This represents a drop in new inventory of 32 percent from last year’s number.  Traditional sellers lead the way in new listings, contributing 58.8 percent of them, whereas last year, they listed just 44 percent of the new inventory.

Single family homes saw a similar decline in new inventory, dropping 9.6 percent over the previous year. Meanwhile, pending sales rose 1.8 percent, helping the total amount of inventory drop 31.4 percent over that of 2012.

Let’s hope the snowbirds get back soon. We need duplexes to sell!