Community Corner
Oakdale Real Estate Underperforms in August Compared to Last Year
The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors released a report on local real estate.
Real estate is officially a hot investment again.
The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors (MAAR) announced Wednesday that for the sixth consecutive month, local real estate prices were up in August on a year-over-year basis. The median price, regionwide, was up 15.5 percent from the same month last year, to $179,000. And the average sales price was $222,922, up 10.4 percent and marking the seventh consecutive month of annual increases.
Even in the boom period from January 2003 to January 2004, median prices in the Twin Cities area were only increasing by about 7 percent a year.
Find out what's happening in Oakdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
While metro-wide real estate has improved compared to August 2011, the month of August did not fare as well in Oakdale compared to 2011.
AUGUST - Oakdale 2011 2012 +/- New listings 51 47 -7.8 % Closed sales 41 37 -9.8 % Median sales price $142,000 $129,000 -9.2 % Average sales price $152,957 $152,351 -0.4 % Price per square foot $91 $83 -8.1 % Percent of original list price received 89.7 % 96.7 % +7.8 % Days on market until sale 118 75 -36.7 % Inventory of homes for sale 150 109 -27.3 % Months of supply of inventory 4.5 3.5 -23.1 %Though August number struggled compared to those in August 2011, Oakdale has seen several positive year to date numbers.
Find out what's happening in Oakdalewith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Regionwide, nearly every housing market measure has indicated improvement for at least six months now. In August, for instance:
• There were 4,877 pending sales, up 19.5 percent and marking the 16th consecutive month of increase.
• There were 4,883 closed sales, up 12.3 percent, marking the 14th consecutive month of increase.
• In June 2012, closed sales fell just six units short of a nearly six-year high.
Part of the reason for rising prices is supply, which has declined compared to demand. In August, there were 16,348 homes for sale, down 30.5 percent from the same month last year and marking the 19th consecutive month of decreases. Inventory levels are at their lowest since the hot market of December 2003, a nearly nine-year low.
Inventory levels, in fact, have come down a total of 54.5 percent from their July 2007 peak, when the market was at its worst.
"With inventory levels nearing 10-year lows, buyers are scrambling to find the perfect house," said Cari Linn, MAAR’s president. "The next step of recovery will be getting hesitant … sellers back into the market."
Also, the “distressed” market is making less and less of an impact on Twin Cities area home prices; in August, foreclosures and short sales comprised less than a third of the new listings, a far lower rate than was seen during the depths of the area’s real estate downturn.
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