The supply of homes for sale continues to fall, with months supply 40% below last October at only 1.5 months. The supply of houses is down to 1.4 months and townhouses even lower, at 1.2 months supply, with fierce competition for new listings. No wonder buyers say Even though the condo supply didn’t increase as much as in recent months, it is still UP 58.3% compared to October 2019, with a 3.8 month supply. This is a great time to be buying a condo!
New listings showed a modest increase of 8.4% over last year, in keeping with a regular rise in new listings each year. But pending sales were more than 2.5 times new listings… leaving total homes for sale 34.5% below last year at only 8,080 listings.
You can see in the graph below that inventory has been low for a relatively long time, but this year’s drop of 34.5% is significant, and it never built the characteristic ‘hump’ of the prime selling season because of the pandemic.
Closed sales were up 22.3% and days on the market before pending dropped 23.9%, to only 35 days. Average median sale price was still over 100%, unusual for this time of year.
The result of fierce competition and multiple offers is a median sales price that continues to rise, at $315,000 in October 2020, 12.5% over October 2019.
As prices rise, the supply in the top price ranges falls, with only a 2.5 month supply for homes in the $500k-$1M price range. Even more significant is the drop in supply of homes over $1M, now at 7.1 months and not very much above the 5-6 month range that is considered a balanced market. When I started tracking these stats in May 2017 there was a 13.7 month supply of homes over $1M… almost double what it is now.
The figures above are based on statistics for the combined 13-county Twin Cities metropolitan area released by the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.
Never forget that all real estate is local and what is happening in your neighborhood may be very different from the overall metro area.
Click here for local reports on 350+ metro area communities
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results – shensrud@homesmsp.com
RELATED POSTS
