Boring St Paul Duplex Market Makes For A Happy Day

In a world currently fraught with highs and lows, boring can be a relief.

October’s St Paul duplex, triplex and fourplex market provided one such reprieve. For example, there were 34 new listings for the month; down two from last year, as well as 2015. In fact, it was so normal it made October, 2020 the outlier at 49.

The market saw 110 active listings in October. This was the sixth straight money with triple digits of active inventory. The last time that happened was October 2015-March 2016.

The Merriam Park/Lexington-Hamline neighborhood contributed 5 new listings to the total, followed by Payne-Phalen and Thomas-Dale with 4 each. An 8 bedroom, 4 bathroom fourplex in the Merriam Park/Lexington-Hamline neighborhood topped new offerings at $850,000. A 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house conversion in Dayton’s Bluff offers an entry-level investor opportunity at $199,900.

Twenty-one sellers completed sales of their properties in the city last month. This was down from September’s 27, and up from last October’s 17. This year’s sellers closed at prices that were an average of 97.3% of their original asking price.

On average, seller’s obtained a sales price of $335,714, which was a decline of 7.5% from September and 7.2%  from one-year-ago. and a median of $320,000. Median values fared substantially better, with October’s $320,000 representing a decline of 2% from September and 4.4% year-over-year.

These properties spent a median of 34 and average of 38 days on the market before closing. This is down from September, as well as October of last year. Cumulative days on the market also dropped 23% from September to 50, and 10.7% year-over-year. The median number of cumulative days also dropped year-over-year; from 55 to 35.

The month’s high seller was a 5 bedroom, 4 bathroom Macalaster-Groveland triplex that closed at $635,000. A 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom side-by-side in the Summit-University neighborhood was the month’s equity-builder at $185,000.

The city’s West Side neighborhood tallied the most transactions with 4, followed by Thomas Dale with 3.

In all, the city saw a 5 month supply of inventory, which favors sellers by a trace, but leans far more toward being a balanced market.

Given the state of the world, boring and balanced seems like a pretty good place to be.