In the Twin Cities we do an excellent job of reporting housing numbers and tracking supply, demand and trends. Sometimes though the numbers say too much or say too little. I’ve taken a couple pieces of data to focus on today:
23,851
Approximate number of homes for sale on the MLS in the Twin Cities
2,956
Approximate number of homes marked as for sale that have an accepted offer subject to a contingency, and the seller is still accepting showings
35%
Percentage of homes for sale listed as short sales that have accepted offers
14%
Percentage of homes for sale listed as bank owned that have accepted offers
5%
Percentage of homes for sale listed as traditional sales that have accepted offers
Takeaways:
- Our effective inventory of homes for sale is about 12% lower than the numbers reported
- Fully 1 in 3 short sales listed for sale already have an offer – the majority of these are waiting for the seller’s lender to approve the sale, a process that can take months.
- Since “active w/offer” is not displayed on consumer web sites, consumers are sometimes frustrated to find out that the home they had an interest in already has an accepted offer. Because there are many details that go behind that information, buyers are encouraged to seek additional information from their agent before choosing to include or exclude houses with accepted contingent offers.
