What Old Corner Stores Can Teach Us About Buying a Duplex in the Twin Cities Right Now

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I’ve been thinking a lot about old corner stores in neighborhoods lately. While very few still exist in their original form, as I travel through the city I seem to notice them every few blocks.

They make me wonder what it must have been like to walk to the corner store for groceries. I’m sure there were fewer choices. After all, how many brands of bread can a shop owner carry in a tiny store without sacrificing the availability of something else? And shoppers? I suppose they didn’t notice the difference. They simply wanted white, wheat, rye or raisin, regardless of who made it.

I’m starting to see the Twin Cities duplex market of the early 2020’s as being something like that corner store.  If a property was near where a duplex buyer wanted to be, and was the flavor they wanted, they bought it. They may even have paid a bit more for it; due to the simply fact of its availability.

Today’s small multifamily market is a bit more like a new suburban supermarket. With thousands of square feet to fill, there’s an enormous selection of everything, and plenty of parking to anyone who wants to trade convenience for choice.

Like one of those stores, today’s Twin Cities duplex buyer also has plenty to choose from. In fact, the number of small multifamily properties available for sale rose 57.27% between February and March, and was up 31% year over year.

This additional new inventory helped increase the total number of active listings for March to 340. This was up 21% from February and 35.5% over one year ago.

A whopping 66 new listings hit the market in Minneapolis alone. St Paul also made a big contribution of new opportunities with 47 new listings. A 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house conversion duplex in St Paul’s North End neighborhood provided an affordable investment opportunity at $180,000. A fourplex in St Paul’s Merriam Park/Lexington neighborhood that featured 8 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms topped new listings at $1,190,000.

The good news is sales were up as well. March saw a total of 60; 25% more than February and a year-over-year increase of 13.2%. Last month’s sellers obtained an average of 97.7% of their original asking price, and a median sales figure of $400,000.

Sold buildings spent an average of 57 days on the market before trading hands. Half of those sales took less than 40 days, and half took more. When including previous time on the market that may have accumulated before the property sold, the average swells to 90 days and the median 67.

With more small multifamily properties than any other Minnesota city, Minneapolis lead the way in solds with 26. Finishing second, as usual, was St Paul, with 14.

An 8 bedroom, 4 bathroom duplex in Minneapolis’ East Isles neighborhood topped the month’s sellers at $1,399,000. A 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house conversion in St Paul’s Thomas-Dale neighborhood provided a nice entry-level investment opportunity at $160,000.

At the current rate of sales, if we had no new listings come on the market, it would take 6 months to run out of active listings to sell. To some that’s considered a balanced market, where buyers and sellers have equal negotiating power. To others the leverage in this market belongs to buyers.

One thing’s for certain. Buyers have more to choose from than they did a few years ago. If you’re considering selling, all that means is you may have to do a little bit more to make yours stand out on the shelf.