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Foreclosures and Short Sales Don't Matter to House Prices

median sales price - all properties - twin cities real estate

While foreclosures and short sales continue to be around 40% of our sales, when looking at housing prices I believe they should be completely ignored. When looking at all Twin Cities housing sales, here is how the Median Sales Price stacks up:   When we split it out to look at Foreclosures, Short Sales and Traditional Sales, we see that Traditional Seller prices have not fallen nearly as much as the composite number suggests:   Why we should ignore foreclosure and short sale sales data If we go … [Read more...]

Stupidly Slow Short Sales That Seldom Sell

short sales msp

Here we are, years into the housing crisis, and it seems like while banks have become pretty good at selling foreclosures they are still horrible at closing short sales.  On average, short sales a have substantially lower chance of closing than traditional or bank owned listings, which means a huge number of short sales fail and go back to the bank as foreclosures.  At the end of the day, short sales sell for far more money than they do as an equivalent foreclosure so each failed short sale means thousands or … [Read more...]

2010 Twin Cities Pre-Foreclosure Notices up 20% vs 2009

Twin Cities Pre-Foreclosure Notices

The Minnesota Home Ownership Center has been tracking pre-foreclosure notices received by foreclosure counseling agencies throughout Minnesota and just posted some updated charts that show 2010 pre-foreclosure notices are consistently higher than the same time frame in 2009.  Through June 2010, notices are up a considerable 20%: I don't find these numbers very surprising: the lackluster economy isn't providing the new jobs necessary to reduce unemployment and those who are unemployed can only afford to make … [Read more...]

1300 Sellers in Twin Cities Waiting for Lender Short Sale Approvals

Based on my personal analysis of our local MLS database, approximately 1300 Twin Cities sellers and at least as many buyers may be waiting for their offer on a short sale property to be reviewed and accepted/rejected/countered by the seller's lender(s).  The number of buyers waiting for answers may be substantially higher than the number of sellers because many short sale listings have multiple offers on them.  Based on current sales activity, these 1300 in-limbo properties are equivalent to two weeks of pending … [Read more...]

In A Short Sale, Who Represents The Lender?

Twin Cities February closed sales showed that bank owned foreclosures were 35% of the month's closed units and short sales represented another 13% - making Lender-Mediated homes sales almost 50% of all residential home sales in the Minneapolis/St. Paul region. On a bank-owned home the Seller is of course the bank and therefore the Listing Agent represents the bank.  On a short sale however, the Listing Agent represents the Seller, which in this case is the current homeowner.  So while the agent must treat all … [Read more...]

Tips on Buying a Short Sale Property

The Minnesota Home Ownership Center has just put out another good resource for buyers - this one discusses things to consider before making an offer on a short sale. Short sales can be a good opportunity and can also be a waste of 2-6 months' of waiting too - each situation is different.  It's important to understand the whole process before making an offer. I also put together a guide comparing the differences between Foreclosures, Short Sales and Traditional Sales - I think it is a good primer for anyone … [Read more...]

Why Loan Modifications & Short Sales Are So Tough

Minnesota Home Ownership Center does a great job of helping struggling homeowners determine and exercise their options.  Their blog post yesterday introduced me to a short article from Public Citizen that explains a large part of our problems in negotiating loan mods and short sales. … [Read more...]

Minneapolis & St. Paul Foreclosure Short Sale Report Updated

MAAR's Foreclosure and Short Sale Report (FSS for short) has been updated for November 2009.  Since October we are now publishing this report MONTHLY and have broken out foreclosures, short sales and traditional sales separately. There is a TON of information in here to see but some of the big items of note: Foreclosure/REO new listings are down 42.4% from November 2008. Foreclosure/REO inventory is down 63.4% from November 2008 - now at less than 2 months' supply. Foreclosure/REO median sales prices ROSE 2% … [Read more...]

What Happens to Vacant Foreclosures?

Star Tribune has an article discussing how many houses in foreclosure sit in limbo between the owner that is losing it and the bank that is repossessing it.  There are a few things in the story that aren't quite right but the gist is good.  Worth a read.  The comments from readers are just sad - it shows how little much of the public understands about the process. … [Read more...]

No Houses Left for First Time Buyers

Minneapolis Housing Supply by Price Point - October 2009

In the last few months we've seen a flurry of sales as first time buyers are trying to close on a home purchase before the $8000 tax credit expires on November 30th (maybe). This has largely lead to the precipitous decline of available inventory on the under $190k and brought Months supply of homes in the 1st time buyer category down as much as 60%! This has been seen expecially strong in the Lender Mediated category, and particularly in the Bank Owned segment: � While it is quite possible that the tax … [Read more...]

Disclaimer

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.