John Murphy Reports

I’m receiving several inquiries each week these days from people interested and curious about possibly purchasing a distress sale property in Medina.   Much of the housing in Medina is in the Wayzata School District.   Some of the neighborhoods you might be interested in include:

• Wild Meadows – see www.WildMeadowsHomeInfo.com
• Bridgewater
• Foxberry Farms – see www.FoxberryFarmsHomes.com
• Tuckborough Farms

I’ve set up a quick subscription service for those who are interested in receiving e-mail updates through my exclusive VIP buyer service.  Just let me know what you’re looking for at:

www.MedinaDistressSales.com

While the city of Plymouth, MN overall is holding up reasonably well in this real estate downturn, the upper bracket is showing signs of continued deterioration.   Average prices appear to be holding up as they are only down 1.5% from a year ago, however, transaction volume is off significantly and supply remains very high.

# of homes sold in 2007:  30

# of homes sold in 2008:  21 (down 30% from last year)
Average sale price 2007:  $920,753

Average sale price 2008:  $906,922 (down 1.5%)

Days on Market  2007:  177

Days on Market 2008:  209

# of homes for sale 2008:  42

Source: RMLS 13 County metro – search and analysis conducted by John Murphy, Re/Max Results.
We are averaging 2 home sales per month in Plymouth for properties over $700,000.  With 42 properties for sale, that means there is a 2 year supply of homes for sale provided nothing new comes on the market.  If anything new comes on the market, the supply will only increase. Many of these homes are in the highly rated Wayzata School District.

The Star Tribune picked up my story about clients of mine who purchased this $1.7 million home for $725,000.

While the luxury distress market represents only about 5% of the overall inventory over $1,000,000, there are still some unbelievable opportunities for those with the financial wherewithall to make that kind of purchase.

For properties in the $500,000 to $1,000,000 range, you’ll find that between 8-10% of the inventory is distressed.  And to be clear as to what I mean with distressed…it’s generally that the financials, i.e. the mortgage, is in distress.  Usually these properties are in pretty good condition.

If you’d like to subscribe to my property search service, please check out www.TCDistressLuxuryHomes.com.

Plymouth home prices seem to be holding their own lately with average home prices down only 2.5% year to date.  Below is a snapshot of the October sales statistics that were just published.

The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors just updated their fabulous report called The 100.   Below is a snapshot for Medina which has seen days on market explode to 228 days until contract and average sales prices down 12.7%.  Sellers are receiving 91.3% of their original list price.  In other words, homes are still priced too high.

The Twin Cities is finally showing some slowing in pending sales activity compared to a year ago.  Listings continue to trend downward and “lender-mediated” or distress sales are becoming an increasingly larger percentage of all listings and sales.

Here are the comments from the association this week along with a story published in yesterday’s Star Tribune leading up to the release of this week’s report.

Weekly Market Activity Report

There is further evidence that home sellers (both traditional and lender-mediated) in the Twin Cities housing market are becoming more successful in attracting buyer interest by pricing their properties attractively from the get-go. This is having the bonus effect of limiting further extension of market time and reducing the number of price concessions. For instance, the Average Days on Market Until Sale in October was 141, down from last year by 0.8 percent. This is the first year-over-year decline in market time since we began tracking the figures in 2006.

Similarly, the Percent of Original List Price Received at Sale in October sat at 91.3 percent. While still down from last year, it is only down 1.9 percent, compared to the more robust drops of 4 percent or higher seen during most of 2008. In other words, the market is still tilted in the buyer’s favor, but sellers and banks are responding with more realistic prices at the time of first listing.

For the week ending November 1, there were 21 percent fewer new listings than there were at this time last year, and 1.4 percent fewer pending sales. This is the first downward year-over-year movement in pending sales since June.

The Housing Affordability Index has increased slightly in November to 161, while November’s Months Supply of Inventory shows a drop to 9 months.

Below is a look at how the listing inventory has dropped over the past year.   The graphical display at the bottom sure looks like the peak may well have been last year for inventory.  Now the big question will be will buyer demand fall faster than listing inventory.  We shall see.

Isn’t this interesting?  I was thinking of creating something like this as a mash up a year and a half ago, but couldn’t find the time.  I’m glad someone else has.

It would be interesting to see if anyone has done a mash up of other crimes.  Murder isn’t much of an issue in the western suburbs, but there is other crime that is a nuisance.