Minneapolis Duplex Market Reverses Itself

OK, I’m officially going to call it a blip.

For months now Twin Cities duplex sellers with equity in their properties have dominated every category of duplex sales.

For the week ending April 5, 2014, however, they slipped ever so slightly.

Last year, traditional duplex sellers had 59.1 of the sales that pended the first week in April. This year, they finished with 57.9 percent. Granted, it’s a small decline, but it is nonetheless a reversal of the trend of the last 12-18 months.

As always, a higher percentage of bank owned or mediated sales leads to lower sales prices. This held true in early April as well, when the average off-market list price was $163,658; down slightly from the week last year’s average sales price of $164,508.

Before we all worry that the sky is falling, it’s important to note there is absolutely no statistical evidence of an increase of foreclosure activity. It is more likely a simple anomaly we won’t see again.

Evidence of this may be found in the 82.14 percent of the new listings for the week that are being offered for sale by traditional sellers. They, coupled with newly listed distressed properties, brought 28 new duplexes to the market. This was down one from last year’s 29; 58.6 percent of which were listed by equity sellers.

The single family home market finally saw a slight increase in new listings; up 6.1 percent from the same week in 2013. However, it’s important to note that pending sales decreased as well, dropping 7.1 percent.

In March, the Median Sales Price for Twin Cities homes was $190,000. This was a 7.6 percent increase over last year.  On average, listings spend just 95 days on the market, and sell for 95 percent of what the price they were put on the market for.

In other words, in spite of our statistical blip, it remains a seller’s market.