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Are Home Prices In The Twin Cities Rising?

If you have ever talked to me in person or have read my blog, you know I’m a bit of a numbers nut.  Ok, I’m a big numbers nut.  I love hard data and analysis because it can tell you so much about what is really going on.

Even though numbers themselves don’t lie, if they were right to begin with, the statistical reports produced from the data can do almost anything depending on what their inherent bias is or what you decide you want to see as the result.

In the last few years in the Twin Cities the housing prices have fallen substantially as the weight of foreclosures and short sales pull down prices.  In recent months, the Minneapolis Area Association of REALTORS has been able to report that after 40+ months of declining prices, median sales prices have now started to rise year over year and have done so 4 months in a row:

Median Sales Price Year Over Year

This is 100% true and is a good sign, but the answer isn’t that simple.  When we peel back the layers of the market into traditional sellers, foreclosure sales and short sales, this is what we see:

Foreclosure and Short Sale Median Sales Price


Here we see the Median Sales Price of Traditional Sellers down substantially, short sales down marginally, and bank owned homes up slightly.  But have Traditional Seller home prices really fallen by that much over the last year?

Price Per Square Foot Year Over Year

When we look at the average price per square foot of all sold properties  we see that it has gone down 6% in the last year, so again, where does that leave us?

Up until 2005 the housing stats were almost all pointed the same way – up.  Since then each new phase of our housing correction has brought in new experiences and challenges and less clarity to what’s really happening in the housing market.  At the same time I’d also say the market is far more varied than it has been in a long time – neighborhood price changes in the last few years have been as little as a few percent in a few to more than sixty percent in some.  Thus any generalized statement about the housing market in the Twin Cities may provide some semblance of understanding of our current situation but for anyone wanting to know what’s happening to their house or their neighborhood or the houses they want to buy, metro-wide statistics of any sort fall quite flat.

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TwinCitiesRealEstateBlog.com is not a Multiple Listing Service MLS, nor does it offer MLS access.
This website is a service of Aaron Dickinson of Edina Realty, a broker Participant of the Regional Multiple Listing Service of Minnesota, Inc.