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St. Paul Home Sales & Prices by Neighborhood
The data used to make the chart is gathered from the MLS. The data in the MLS is deemed reliable but not guaranteed. This data is for October 2008 for single family homes which includes condos, in the city of St. Paul, MN. Homes that are pending have had offers made on them, and those offers have been accepted by the seller but the sale and has not yet closed.
The prices are the actual sales prices of all homes that closed during the month of October, all 260 of them. The areas of the city that have the most foreclosures also have the lowest average sale prices. I also computed the median sales price for the month because some people like that number. This is just for the homes that closed in October $139,955 . . wow! how much lower will it go? It should be noted that what I am calling a clearnace sale is going on. The lowest priced homes on the market, many of them foreclosures that have been on the market for some time are selling.
For numbers from previous months see Local Market Conditions and Home Prices For Local Mortgage News go to Behind The Mortgage by Alex Stenback
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I am still willing to go on record for saying that the bottom is past in terms of sales volume (good for realtors and realistic sellers).
I think we are a ways off from the bottom in pricing (good for buyers, bad for stubborn sellers).
PB
PB - I will say we are at bottom in volumn. I hope we are close to bottom in price if not I fear that the financial crisis will worsen and volumn will shrink further.
Unfortunately, we can't be at a price bottom. Unemployment is still rising rapidly and corporation after corporation are reporting horrific earnings. Massive layoffs are coming in public and private jobs.
Question: Why is it so important that prices bottom? Why can't they continue this slow slide as long as the bottom in sales volume is past?
Citigroup alone is eliminating over 50,000 jobs. Retailers are closing. In 1998, household had much less mortgage and consumer debt as a percentage of gross income than ever before. Either they must pay it off, or they must default. If they pay off debt, how can they drive up house prices? If they default on debt, they will be out of the housing market for a few years while they rebuild their credit.
House prices dropping is part of the solution, not part of the problem.
Again, why is a price bottom so important?
PB - you are not a home owner or it would make sense to you. I'll write a post about what the bottom means to us who own homes and what depreciation means to us.
I do not think it is necessary for me to be a homeowner to understand why a homeowner wants to see a bottom in house prices. That logic is obvious.
But when the median-income household cannot service the debt on the median-priced house, something has to give.
The debt burden of Americans must be reversed in order to become a prosperous nation again.