Statistics released by the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors this week showed April sales were up 7.2% compared to last year, not as big a jump as last month, but pending sales were up even more than last month, showing a 23.8% increase over last April. This was the highest number of purchase agreements signed in April since 2005! Of those pending sales, 46% were lender mediated.
New listings continue to lag behind other years.
The combination of fewer new listings and more sales is keeping the total supply of homes for sale significantly below the last two years. This is putting sellers in a better position as more buyers compete for fewer homes. I had a client make an offer on a traditional, non-lender-mediated home this week that went into multiple bids. The listing agent commented that people don't realize that in many markets it is really a sellers market again…with buyers competing for the good properties.
Median sale price continues to hang below last year but at least appears to be more steady, with biggest price drops in foreclosures and short sales. Median sale price for traditional homes was down 8.5% and lender-mediated home prices were down 21.5% compared to last year at this time.
The supply of homes is down in every price range except under $120,000, where there is a 38.1% increase…not surprising because this price range has the highest percentage of lender-mediated homes. Because of the strong sales in the price range, however, the months supply of inventory is down 54.1% to only a 4.6 month supply…resulting in multiple bids on many properties in this price range.
While properties in price ranges above $350,000 are showing the largest drops in sales, only price ranges above $500,000 are showing increases in the months supply of inventory…likely reflecting the higher mortgage rates charged for jumbo loans.
The months supply of condos continues to be the highest, with both houses and townhomes showing a drop in supply and condos showing an increase compared not only to April last year shown below, but also to last month.
The figures above are for the combined 13-county Twin Cities metropolitan area. Click here for links to the full April combined report as well as local reports for 125 metro communities.
Sharlene Hensrud, Realtor – Twin Cities Market Info – Email
RELATED POSTS
