Up, up and Away! A 2017 Real Estate Recap

Usually, on the Monday after Thanksgiving in Minnesota we're suffering through our first Monday back at work after a 4 day weekend stuffed with food and football and dreading getting in our car because it's either cold, snowing or cold and snowing. We're just hoping it's bearable. Not this year, though. The Monday following Thanksgiving this year the temp (currently) sits at 57 and there's not a drop of snow on the ground. 

You're probably asking what that rambling story is getting at? Well, last year according to the Shenehon Center for Real Estate at the University of St. Thomas’ Opus College of Business forecasted a 5% increase in real estate prices across the Twin Cities. That is very good. In a normal climate an increase between 1-3% is good. Rates were also holding at or under 4%. Also very good. For buyers who read the Star Tribune story about the expected increase and who were not purchasing until later in the year, they were hoping that those rates would stick. They got lucky as rates today are still 4%. However, buyers that waited got lucky on the snow, but not lucky on the cold as home prices actually increased 7.3% across the board! A truly insane number. The average sale price went from $274k to $295k. Buyers that waited got bit hard by sales price increase.

A mix of those rates holding and the continued trend of historically low listings (we actually had nearly 2% less listings this year than we had last year) drove the rise in sales prices. We expect another forecast to come out in January and I expect that forecast to be 5% again but unless we see a mass flooding of listings to the market and/or a dramatic increase in the rates, expecting another year of 7% growth isn't insane. 

Still think you're under water? You're not. Still think it's a good idea to wait until next spring or fall to purchase? It's not. Time to jump in. Let's just hope these temps stay and the water isn't frozen.