Twin Cities Duplex Buyers Have More Choices

The last decade has been stressful for Twin Cities area duplex, triplex and fourplex buyers. With little inventory and low interest rates, competition was fierce for the best properties on the market.

There are signs this is changing.

September saw 373 active listings throughout the 7 county Twin Cities area. That is the most since October, 2015. This represents a 5.4% increase over August, and a rise of 16% year-over-year.

This tally was fueled in part by 167 new listings. As always, Minneapolis chipped in the most with 86, followed by St Paul with 36.

A boarded up side by side duplex with 4 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms in Minneapolis’ Ventura Village was the equity opportunity of the month, at $160,000. An East Isles Minneapolis triplex with 7 bedrooms and 5 bathrooms topped new inventory at $1.2 million.

Sellers should not despair. They too had a reasonable month. A total of 93 properties sold in September; a 9.4% increase over August. Better yet, this was a spike of 36.8% year-over-year. Minneapolis lead the way with 49 transactions, followed by 6 in St Paul.

The month’s price champion was found in Minneapolis’ East Isles neighborhood. The 8 bedroom, 6 bathroom triplex traded for $995,000. The value-add opportunity of the month was a 2 bedroom, 2 bathroom house conversion ripe for a rehab project, closing at $140,000.

Sellers received an average sales price that was 98.8% of their original list price. They spent an average of 47 days on the market, and 69 cumulative days. Median days on market stood at 28, while the median for cumulative days landed at 31.

This activity resulted in a 4 month supply of inventory, which is still a seller’s market.

Of note, there were also 142 expired listings for the month. Those are multifamily properties that were on the market and didn’t sell. That’s the most since December, which is always the highest month of the year for expireds. More importantly, it was the highest number of expireds of any month not starting with the letter D since November, 2021.

While Twin Cities duplex, triplex and fourplex sales are relatively constant year-round, listing activity tends to decline over the winter months. This may provide an opportunity for active inventory to get absorbed before spring.