Suburban Duplex Market Heats Up: Inventory Jumps 31% as Spring Buying Season Kicks Off

Following the Twin Cities suburbs’ February flirtation with becoming a buyer’s market, March saw the 7-counties return to a seller’s market with just a 3-month supply of inventory.

This differs from the urban core of Minneapolis and St Paul, where 7-month supplies put buyers in the driver’s seat.

March saw 26 new listings in the suburbs. While this was up year over year from 18, more properties sold this year, too. Last March, 11 duplex, triplex, and fourplex sellers parted ways with their properties. This year, 18 did.

Robbinsdale led the way with 3 new investment opportunities in the suburbs. Columbia Heights, New Brighton, New Hope, and South St Paul finished in a four-way tie for second, with 2 new listings each.

Two 4-bedroom, 2-bathroom house conversion duplexes on the same block in New Brithton tied for the month’s value award, each listing at $309,000. A Medicine Lake 6-bedroom, 4 bathroom side by side just a house off the lake topped the new offerings at $699,900.

In all, there were 46 active suburban listings on the market in March; a jump of 31.4% year-over-year.

The month’s sellers realized closed prices that were at 98.9% of their original list price. This was roughly on par with last March’s 98.8%, but below March 2020’s robust 101.3%.

The average sales price of $488,622 and median of $434,000 were healthy increases over the $386,955 and $385,000 respectively. Sold properties spent an average of 44 and median of 26 days on the market before selling.  When including any previous time on the market befrore selling this average grew to 63 days, with a median of 67.

Plymouth, Columbia Heights and Fridley finished in a three-way tie for the most solds, with 2 each.

The high seller was a 6 bedroom, 4 bathroom, magazine-worthy Excelsior side by side that fetched $840,000. An up/down side by side in South St Paul provided a cash flow opportunity to its buyer at $350,000.

As we head deeper into spring, let’s hope these positive numbers continue to grow.