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1/3/2008: Jim Buchta: Lower-price homes took biggest hit in housing dip

Star Tribune:

The prices of the state's most affordable houses have taken the biggest hit during the recent housing downturn, but those declines are expected to level off by fall, according to research released Wednesday during a housing event at the University of St. Thomas' Opus College of Business.

Across 38 Minnesota counties (those that have the most transactions), the median sale price of single-family houses, condominiums and townhouses fell 2.3 percent between the third quarters of 2006 and 2007, with the bulk of those declines in the metro area, according to Thomas Hamilton, the study's author and an associate professor of real estate at St. Thomas' Opus College of Business.

For houses priced at less than $165,000 -- those in the lowest 20 percent of the market -- the median sale price in the 38 counties fell almost 9 percent, while for houses priced at more than $315,000 -- those in the top 20 percent -- there was a 0.4 percent rise. In the eight-county metro area, the median sales price at the low end of the market fell almost 10 percent, while at the upper end it rose almost 1 percent.