St Paul Duplex Sales A Fraternal Twin

Sometimes I wonder why Minneapolis and St Paul are called the Twin Cities when they couldn’t be more different; especially in the duplex market.

Take, for instance, January’s duplex sales in St Paul. There were 20. Sellers averaged a sales price of $336,955. It wasn’t the lowest of the last 12 months, nor the highest.

Meanwhile, Minneapolis saw 23 sales at an average price of $464,041.

The fact is Minneapolis has more small multifamily properties and therefore, more chances to shine.

St Paul duplexes, triplexes and fourplexes spent an average of 55 days on the market before selling. That number jumped to 67 when you count cumulative days on the market (properties that were canceled and relisted to look fresh).

The month’s high seller was a 7 bedroom, 4 bathroom 1960’s built fourplex in the West Seventh neighborhood that retailed at $600,000. A partially rehabbed 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house conversion duplex in the Payne-Phelan neighborhood that closed for $118,000. The Payne-Phalen and West Side neighborhoods saw the most activity, with 4 sales each.

St Paul saw 26 new listings in January to Minneapolis’ 47. For St Paul, that was one less than the same month one year ago. However, there were 58 total active listings in the month. That’s a 16% increase over one year ago.

The Hamline-Midway, Thomas-Dale and West Seventh neighborhoods all did their part to ease the duplex inventory shortage, contributing 4 each in new inventory. A Hamline-Midway 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom duplex that looked very lived in and not updated in decades was the month’s best flip opportunity at $130,000. A Craftsman-era 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom duplex in Mac Groveland represented an opportunity for an owner occupant at $585,000.

With spring in the air, we’ll see if St Paul can’t engage in a little duplex sibling rivalry with