The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors is out with their final weekly report for the year and sales continue to improve at a healthy rate compared to the same period in ’07. This has been a nearly uninterrupted trend for the second half of 2008 compared to 2007.
As I tell people often, it’s more important for the market to see improving transaction volume rather than price. Price will not lead the market. It will continue to lag while transactions start to rise. In part this is due to the fact that that market will continue to chew up housing on the low end first before moving up the food chain. Right now we’re seeing this at its extreme with so many sales happening at price points under $150,000 as we see again in this week’s report.
What’s hot right now? Â Bank owned and under $150k.
Below is this week’s report.
Weekly Market Activity ReportThe recent plunge downward in mortgage rates to a decades-low level is spurring Twin Cities home sales, despite shorter days and holiday interruptions. For the week ending December 20, there were 553 purchase agreements signed (pending sales), which is an increase of 20.0 percent from the same week last year. Since rates dropped three weeks ago, there have been 368 more pending sales than there were during the same period in 2007, an increase of 27.5 percent. During this period, 57.6 percent of sales have been lender-mediated foreclosures and short sales and 45.8 percent are below $150,000.
Listing supply is relatively flat with last year at this time over the past few weeks, with an increasing share of new listings being lender-mediated. Traditionally, sellers often pull back at this time of year to wait out the holidays, but banks continue to list no matter what time of year it is.
