Pending home sales are up nation wide and in the metro area and even in St. Paul.  They are up from January which is actually kind of normal but we have not seen pending sales this high in St. Paul since April 2010 when they were even higher due mostly to tax credits.

Even though pending sales are up prices are not up.  The hotest selling price ranges is the below 100K price point and the fast movers are priced at around 58K. 

The data used to create the chart comes form the North Star MLS. The data is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. . . .which is alright because there are no guarantees in life.

These numbers are for single family homes which includes condos in St. Paul, Minnesota for the month ending February 29, 2012.

feb2012

Part of the reason I publish this numbers each month is because it keeps me up to date and I have to look at the numbers.  I create the chart myself and that takes about a half hour. 

For more local numbers see Local Market Conditions and Home Prices

 There are fewer licensed real estate agents than there were last year.  The number of agents has been going down but not as quickly as the number of home sales has gone down.  The last half of 2010 through all of 2011 were the hardest post housing crash years and it is understandable that some agents moved on. 

There are still too many agents but at least the odds are getting better.    Not all members of the Minnesota association sell real estate.  Some are in other related business, others are managers and some are part-time sales people.  I don't have all the numbers for the state of Minnesota as far as how many pieces of real property were sold last year but I can estimate and conclude that there are still twice as many agents as there were sales.  

Members of the Minnesota Association of Realtors

Realtor association membership is a bit complicated.  It is possible to have a real estate license and to not belong but agents who do not belong to the association can not list homes on our multiple listing service (MLS)  Most agents are members of the MN association.  We join a local association and automatically become members of the state and National Association.  I have to say out of all of those associations I belong to I  get the most value from being a member the Minnesota Association. 

 I am not sure how it happened bur I missed January which is weird because it is a big cold month and hard to miss.  here are some statisitcs for January home sales in St. Paul, Minnesota.  

The data used to create the chart comes form the North Star MLS.  The data is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.   We will have numbers for February sometime next week.

Home prices are about what they were in January of 2011.  The number of home sales is up from a year ago but about the same as it has been for the past three months.  Real estate is local and these numbers may not reflect what it going on in your area.

The inventory of homes on the market continues to decline, there are about 25% fewer homes on the market today than there were a year ago.  Prices are being held down by sluggish demand and the large number of below market value foreclosures on the market.  

January 2012

For more reports and local real estate numbers check the Local Market Conditions & Home prices category. 

 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.