Minneapolis Duplex Buyers Are Couch Potatoes

couch potato coupleVegetation is something that usually happens during Minnesota winters.

Yes, I know it’s green outside and there are plenty of weeds to pull and lawns to mow.

But I’m talking about the kind of vegetation that keeps buyers at home, or “up north”, sitting on the couch.

Don’t believe me?

For the week ending June 26, single family home sales were down 47.6 percent from their mark one year ago. While the number of new listings was also down 6.5 percent, the market is a bit like dieting right now. Less activity with only a marginal reduction of caloric intake, and it’s akin to gaining winter weight.

Proof is in the 27,526 homes on the market; an increase of 3.2 percent year over year.

Duplex buyers may have been watching Netflix, but they seemed to be sofa surfing as well. Pended sales were down 52 percent from the same week last year. While it was encouraging that 41.7 percent of these transactions belonged to traditional sellers compared to last year’s 24 percent, the average off market price of $185,000 was just slightly ahead of the $172,828 for the same week in 2009.

The good news here is in the duplex and small multi-family market, the number of new listings year over year dropped 26.8 percent. Of these new listings 53.7 percent belonged to traditional sellers compared with last year’s 25 percent.

Let’s hope duplex buyers start a workout program soon.