Ripples

Star Tribune Fri, 11 Apr 2008 02:40:39 GMT
It's not a seller’s housing market around the Twin Cities

The unsold-home inventory is down, but market activity remains tepid despite a surge of $150,000-or-less listings. The traditional spring selling season in the Twin Cities-area real estate market is warming up about as rapidly as the weather. Pending sales -- signed purchase agreements -- were down 14.6 percent in March compared with March 2007. Meanwhile, closed sales were down 12.1 percent year over year and down 32 percent from March 2006. But the number of new homes hitting the market is falling, too, helping to keep the glut of properties for sale from growing. According to the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, there were 8,523 new listings last month, 17 percent fewer than March 2007 and 21 percent fewer than in March 2006. New listings for the first three months were down 8.7 percent from 2007. New home construction was down 24.2 percent.

[[keywords: Housing;PropertyTax;Metro;]]