http://www.twincitiesusa.com/video/Real-Estate-Update-for-the-Twin-Cities-July-2011

STEVE:  Hi, this is Steve Westmark of Counselor Realty.  Thanks once again for watching my video blog.  We’re out at beautiful Lake Minnetonka, one of our beautiful 10,000 lakes in Minnesota.  And I’m going to kind of give you a market update on what’s happened in the first six months of 2011 for Twin Cities real estate.

Some of the main statistics—and I’ll give you a summary of what it means in the end—that number one, our listings are down this year so far by about 17%.  Pending sales are about even with what they were last year.  But our closed sales are down by about 10%.  One of the negative things that happen that I feel is both our median sale price and average sale price were down by nearly 10% and that our price per square foot in the Twin Cities has dropped by about 12%.

Housing affordability though is very, very good.  And that has increased because of lower interest rates and also because of the price drop in the market area.  And last of all, is that our supply of homes on the market is down by 16%.  So what does all that mean?  Well, in the past, I shared in other updates that we look very closely at the foreclosed properties and the short sale properties and we’ve seen a positive change over the last two to three months so that there are more traditional home sales in comparison to the amount of sales that are happening in short sale and foreclosure.

Other positive things that are happening is number one, because of the lower prices and because of the lower interest rates, affordability is terrific for buyers.  It’s great both for investors who want to buy and have a cash flow and great for buyers who want to purchase.  For sellers in the marketplace, I go back to the three things when I share with sellers for the first time.  Are you a bank?  Are you a must you sell or you just want to sell? 

In this marketplace with higher inventory and lower prices and the amount of bank-owned properties, I really encourage sellers to look at that you must sell.  If you must sell, then you understand you have to competitively price in today’s marketplace against both the bank-owned short sales and the competitive sellers that are in the marketplace.  Well, thanks for watching my update this week.  Go out and enjoy a day at the lake in the coming month and make it a great day.  Thanks, bye.