Shakopee Home Sale Prices Drop Slightly in September

The Twin Cities region as a whole is experiencing the closest thing it’s seen in a long while to a “boom market”—though Shakopee’s real estate market stagnated in September.

Andy Fazendin, president-elect of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, said the median sales price across the 13-county area in September was $174,000, up 12.3 percent from the same month a year ago. In addition, homes spent an average of 101 days on the market, selling 28.7 percent faster than last year at this time. Sellers received, on average, 94.8 percent of their list price, 4.1 percent more than in September 2011.

But in Shakopee the median sales price dropped slightly, from $172,000 in September 2011 to $169,500 last month. The 1.5 percent drop was the first monthly decrease in median sales price since December 2011. Shakopee also saw a 14 percent drop in new listings—from 72 in September 2011 to 62 last month—and 14 percent drop in the number of closed sales—from 50 to 43.

But Shakopee held steady in some measures. The average September sales price of homes (which can be skewed upward by the sale of luxury houses) rose by in September to $207,179—5.4 percent higher than the September 2011 figure. And sellers received on average, 97 percent of their list price, 3 percent more than in September 2011.

Regionally, experts are saying the main problem with the real estate market is that homeowners aren’t willing to post a “For Sale” sign.

“Interest rates in the Twin Cities are around 3.4 percent and buyers have a justified sense of urgency," Fazendin said. “Housing has gone from a laggard the past few years to leading the charge in 2012."

The only missing ingredient, he said, is a supply of sellers. With prices now just beginning to recover from the awful declines of recent years, many homeowners may be holding out in hopes that the surge will continue.

As a result, the number of homes for sale in the area has dropped for 20 consecutive months and is now below 16,000 for the first time since December 2003, during the last boom market. Months' supply of inventory—a common figure describing how long it would theoretically take to sell every available home on the market—fell 40.9 percent to four months.

Figures below four months’ supply indicate a sellers' market, Fazendin said. He added that in September, sellers brought 5,341 properties to the market, 4.1 percent fewer than last year.

Another advantage for sellers: They no longer have to compete with such a huge wave of cheap, “distressed” properties entering the market.

Short sales and foreclosures, which tend to sell for about 27 percent less than comparable “for sale” properties sold the traditional way, made up only 30.6 percent of new listings in September 2012, the lowest percentage since June 2008, with the result that “there's finally some room to breathe for traditional sellers," said Cari Linn, MAAR’s president