November Twin Cities Real Estate News Roundup

Local and national housing statistics indicate that the real estate markets in the Twin Cities and surrounding areas are still struggling. Here are brief summaries of three recently released Twin Cities real estate reports:

• The Case-Shiller Home Price Index, which follows repeat sales of properties, indicated that during September, prices in the Minneapolis - St. Paul metro area were down 7.4% compared with 2010 and down just 0.9% from August.
• A report from the Builders Association of the Twin Cities showed that Twin Cities home builders requested about the same number of permits in November of this year as they did in 2010. However, the number of units they planned to build decreased from 685 to 442. Construction activity for the year overall is down compared with last year, but improved form 2009.
• A third quarter report from Corelogic said that 17.5% of all residential properties in the Twin Cities metro with a mortgage were worth less than the amount owed on the mortgage, compared with 17.4% during the second quarter. That percentage is better than the national figure of of 22.5% of homes. It could be a lot worse. In Nevada, 58% of all mortgaged properties were upside-down.
• Finally, decreasing home prices have attracted some buyers into the Twin Cities real estate market, but kept sellers out. According to October sales figures from the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, though the number of closed sales was up 32.1%, with the median sale price of those deals was down 9.4% compared to 2010. The number of new listings fell 16.3% and were at the lowest level since 2004. It is unlikely that figure has changed much, given the presense of the holiday season.

Stay tuned to see how the Twin Cities real estate market downshifts for the winter season.