The final numbers have come in and home slaes were up more than 25%  in January 0f 2012 as compared to January 2011. 

January 2011 was also much colder and the unemployment rate was higher.  That all made for a really crappy month for home sales. In January of 2012 43.2 percent of all new listings were either foreclosures or short sales. Together distressed properties made up 55.3 percent of all closings.

The good news is that homes in financial distress are exiting the marketplace faster than they are entering it, but are probably holding home values down. 

The median sales price metro wide was down a  3.4 percent from January 2011 to $140,000, marking the smallest decline since November 2010.[according to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors]

Right now there is a lot of activity in the real estate market but there are still plenty of sellers with unrealistic expectations.  I will be writing more about that next week. 

The spring market started very early this year.  If you are planning on selling your home in the spring consider listing it on Valentines day instead and do the right thing by listing with me because I need the business. 

The picture looks wintery but it had been warmish most days and I have heard the people on TV say we are having a snow draught.  It is certainly an unusual winter.  

The unemployment rate has gone down and it "feels" less recessionish.  Interest rates on home mortgages have been hovering below 4%.  Foreclosures and short sales still make up a third of the market or so an the number of homes on the market continues to decline.  I am wondering how low our housing inventory will go because there are fewer homes on the market each week during a time when there should be more.  

Homes are not selling quickly it still takes more than 180 days in St. Paul on average to sell a home.  Prices are not going up but they don't seem to being going down right now either.   

Even though the economy seems to be recovering a little it doesn't seem like the housing market it recovering. . . .which is weird.  

It really is a great time to buy rental property or maybe a second home but it still isn't a great time to sell that big expensive home in the burbs. 

St. Paul Home Values 2007 to 2011

These numbers are from a report that I got from the Saint Paul Association of Realtors.  They show a 47% average home price decline in St. Paul and a 36% decline in Minneapolis over the same period.  Median home prices in the metro area have declined by 33% since 2007.

I keep writing about how low the inventory of homes for sale is and it keeps getting lower slowly.  There are fewer buyers and in most cases buyers can find what they are looking for.  Todays buyers in general would rather wait than pay too much or settle for a home that isn't what they were looking for.  

Some homes are selling very quickly but on average the homes that are currently on the market have been for sale for an average of 189 days.   Housing is likely to be a topic of the presidents state of the union address this evening.  Absorption rates are a calculation of how long it will take for all the homes on the market to be sold, or absorbed, at the current rate of homes sales. Absorption rates can change quickly. I love numbers and these numbers are in months, the data used came from the RMLS, (MLS) and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. Sadly there are no guarantees in life. These are for the seven county metro area which is like the 13 county metro area except smaller and are for the last 30 days.

Anoka County 5 Months
Carver County 6 Months
Dakota County 5 Months
Hennepin County 5 Months
Ramsey County 5 Months
Scott County 5 Months
Washington County 6 Months

The numbers indicate that there is about a six month supply of homes on the market in the metro area which is a sign of a balanced market.  it still feels like a buyers market.  I will be interesting to see if home prices start to tick up a bit in the next few months. 

For more numbers like these for St. Paul, MN please see Local Market conditions and home prices.

 It is Monday and I have some real estate numbers for St. Paul Minnesota because real estate is local and I like numbers.  

The numbers used to make the chart came from the Northstar MLS and are deemed reliable but not guaranteed.  I did not take any of the numbers I just borrowed them.

December is the slowest month of the year for home sales and prices are usually the lowest of the year.  Median prices in St. Paul were $104,500 for December 2011.  

For the first time since in many years but I do not know how many there was more buying going on in our market than selling.  The number of pending sales is higher than the number of homes that were listed.  This is great news for home sellers.  

December 2011

The inventory of homes on the market is very low and buyers are having a hard time finding that perfect home.  I have been watching every day for new listings for my buyers which is something I have not had to do in years.

I anticipate an increase in homes on the market and an increase in buying activity because we almost always see more activity in January than in December.  

For more numbers like these please see local numbers and market conditions.

 I did that headline the way the television stations do the blurbs for the evening news.  It is a bit misleading but more dramatic than the story. We don't really know how many vacant homes there are in St. Paul but we do know how many registered vacant buildings there are.  

Currently there are only 1344 registered vacant buildings.  Most of them are provate homes.  This is way down from what I believe to have been the all time high of 2031 that we hit in September of 2008.

Harris Street house 

Some of the homes that were on vacant building list have been rehabbed and sold, others have been torn down and some have been on the list for years.  Homes  on the list have notices posted on the doors and can not be inhabited until multiple local building code violations are cured.  In some cases the cost of doing the repairs exceeds the value of the home, they are held to a higher standard than any other older home.

 The city does not require home buyers or sellers to correct code violations when a home changes hands. Violations range from faulty wiring to non existent central heating plants.  

There are still plenty of vacant homes that are not on the list.   Most of the homes that I show to buyers are vacant.  Prior to about 2008 most of the homes I showed buyers were occupied.  The number of vacant homes has become a nation wide problem but it is getting better . . slowly.  

 The holidays are over and it is time to get back to work or at the very least to get back to buying houses and reading my blog.   I can tell when there are a lot of people taking the day off because blog traffic goes way down.  My apologies if reading my blog is work.  Some of our listings got a decent amount of traffic last week which is unusual for the last week in December.  I am guardedly optimistic that the housing market will not be the catastrophy in 2012 that it has been for the last few years. (I can say anything I want about the housing market because I am not running for office and I do not work for any of the boards of Realtors) 

I do not have any  numbers yet but we may have hit a ten year low for the number of homes that are on the market.   That means that buyers will have fewer choices but  we can count on more homes going on the market in January. . . wait for it . . 

35 E West of downtown St. Paul  

I took the picture almost two years ago but I checked and it all looks the same.

*not the first day back for me because I have been here all along