St. Paul’s 147 Active Listings Signal Shift for Duplex & Triplex Buyers

While Minneapolis accounts for about half of all duplex, triplex, and fourplex sales in the Twin Cities, St Paul plays an outsized role too, adding about another 25% of all transactions.

It stands to reason, then, that how those two cities go has an outsized impact not only on the monthly numbers, but on the overall measures of how the small multifamily market is in the Twin Cities.

As a result, the fact that in June, St Paul had more active listings, at 147, than any month in a decade, is important. This was fueled somewhat by the month’s 57 new listings, a year-over-year increase of 42.5%.

The largest percentage of these new listings came from three neighborhoods. Payne-Phalen offered 10 new opportunities in June, as did the Summit-University neighborhood. A Thomas-Dale area 6-bedroom, 2-bathroom boarded-up house conversion duplex offered a rehab opportunity at $159,900. For those interested in a turn-key opportunity, a Summit-University fourplex with 8 bedrooms and 7 bathrooms topped new opportunities at $995,000.

While the month saw 28 sales, which represented a 24.3% decline year-over-year, those who did sell appeared to nail their list price, as they obtained an average of 100% of their original list price. These properties earned an average sales price of $359,684 and median of $362,500.

The month’s high seller was a pristine Summit-University triplex with a whopping 10 bedrooms and 3 bathrooms that closed at$1,170,000. A teardown 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom Category 2 duplex in the West Side area still has me scratching my head, closing at just $17,850.

Successful sellers spent an average of 43 days and median of 19 days on the market before selling. When factoring any previous market time before selling, the number of cumulative days on the market rose to an average of 51, and median of 26. Both CDOM counts were roughly the same as those posted in May.

In all, St Paul has a 5-month supply of inventory. That’s a number usually considered to either slightly favor sellers or even to be balanced, where buyers and sellers are on equal footing.