Make It Move in Ready
People do not like to think about improvements they will need to make in home buying. Thus if there are noticeable problems with your home, you need to get them taken care of so your property is turnkey ready. Repair any holes in the walls or damage you have to the exterior of the home, and then slap some paint on areas that need a new look. This is an affordable way to instantly refresh your home. If you want, you could also get a home inspector out to look over the property because your buyers will likely have one come out before they sign a contract. You can catch problems before their inspector would.  In Minnesota, pay close attention to the exterior in the spring once the snow melts.

List It Logically
When you decide the price of your home, you cannot just make it the price you think it is worth. You have to figure out what the logical value of the property would be in today’s market for your area. That may not be as high of a price as what you want it to be, but you have to make it so that other people will be able to afford the price. You can mark it up a few grand because people will likely try to talk you down in pricing, but do not go so high that you are way above the other properties in the Lake Minnetonka area. You want to beat the competition, not make them look better.

Stage Your Home
If you can setup your house so people could see themselves in there, you will make it sell faster. This sounds odd, but you can actually manipulate a sale just by having your home set up right. Get rid of any kid’s toys you have lying around, at least when someone is coming for a tour. Make every room have a purpose, and put furniture in there that fits the purpose. If you do not need the furniture when you leave, you could even think about offering it as part of the home. That is up to you.

Other stats are not looking so great either.  In February, the average number of days on the market jumped 16.1% to 157 days, which is the highest number since the data has been kept (2003).  In 2010, homes sold on average in 135 days, but in 2005, homes would sell in 30 days.

The news agencies always report the median sales price.  I am not really a big fan of that number because it simply says that more or less homes of higher or lower price sold.  If the median sales prices goes from the $142,500 last year to the $159,000 this February, it simply tells us that more homes over $159,000 sold this year than last.  Not sure how that information is important or actionable.

Surprisingly, foreclosure sales were up 40% from 2010 with increased listings of foreclosures jumping 5.5% year over year.  I think that many buyers are seeing the amazing opportunities, even in Lake Minnetonka homes out there and are buying their dream homes.

True, most Lake Minnetonka homeowner are in the middle to upper middle income brackets.  Many single family homes will run $400-800k.  The families that live in these houses are not immune to the changes in the economy.  They are not sitting around eating caviar and sipping champagne while the rest of us go to work.  They can be affected by job loss, business failure, divorce, and other problems just like you and me.  In fact, I have seen more than a few Lake Minnetonka homes for sale where it was clear that the previous owners were simply trying to keep up with the Joneses and overextended their credit and burned their money faster than they made it.

So where or how do you find foreclosures on the lake?  You can try to search by the individual cities that are on the lake such as Wayzata, Excelsior, Mound, and others.  This can be clunky using the public Minnesota MLS as most of these don’t have enough control to filter out just the foreclosures.  Find an active real estate agent that works in those areas.  Have him or her set up a geographic search by simply circling the entire lake in the MLS and then setting the criteria for both Lake Front and for foreclosure.  That should get it done.

Keep one additional thought in mind.  Filtering by just what is marketed as a foreclosure may make you miss some other great deals.  Short sales can be as cheap as foreclosure and often they are in better condition because the homeowner is still living in the property.  To avoid missing anything, remove the foreclosure criteria from the search and have your agent simply put a price range on the search.  This may yield a much larger number of property results, but you should be able to see everything out there this way.  Nothing should slip through your fingers.

New Lake Minnetonka Homes for Sale listings were down by 11% or 18 units in February versus last year at the same time.  Year to date listings are down almost 3%.  Many sellers are realizing that they have lost equity in their properties and/or are not able to sell their homes for what they previous thought and have decided to not list their homes.  Many of the listings are also coming off the market as single family home inventory is down by almost 8% in February.

Some of the decline in inventory can also be attributed to a rebound in closed sales of 17.1%.  Truthfully it sounds significant, but it only represents 6 more houses closed in February 2010 versus 2009.  It is a trend that we would like to see continue as closed sales are also up almost 6% year to date.  Wayzata and Mound were the largest gains of closed sales in February.

The median and average sale prices of homes that were close has continue to fall significantly.  February saw a 29% dip in median sale prices with a 12.6% drop in average sale prices.  Year to date numbers were 22.2% and 27.4 drops respectively.  Buyers are taking advantage of the short sales and REO inventory to drive prices down.  Wayzata also has a large number of sales ($3.6M) that may have stopped the sales numbers from being lower as it was up 893% over February 2009.

In February 2009, sellers were receiving only 82% of the original list price at the sale.  In 2010 the sellers are receiving almost 92%.  Much of this can be attributed to sellers being more realistic now on what their homes are really worth and pricing them accordingly.

Thankfully, average days on market has come down dramatically from over 8 months to just over 5 months.  This 32% decrease is welcome news.  The decreased inventory of Lake Minnetonka homes helps bring down the market time.

If you are in the market to sell or buy a home around the Lake Minnetonka area, call me at 612-281-5419.

The single-family detached inventory for Long Lake in December 2008 saw just 11 homes on the market. Of those homes, only but one home was a new listing. In December 2009, the number of homes on the market rose 34% over the previous year to 15 and of those 3 were new listings. If you haven’t done the math yet, new listings between December 2008 and December 2009 skyrocketed 200%! All goofing aside, the increase in new listings does follow figures for the year-to-date, just not as dramatically. For the year-to-date, Long Lake saw 43 new listings in 2008 and in comparison, 52 in 2009.

Closed sales in December ‘08 and at the year-end of 2008, the numbers were 1 and 18 respectively. Closed sales for December ‘09 saw only one closing with the year-to-date finishing down 16.7%.

Median sales prices between December 2008 and December 2009 rose 42.4% to $299,000, however, the year-to-date median sales price was down 17.4% from $248,125 to $205,000. The one sold home in December 2009 received 88% of the original list price, up 0.1% from December 2008’s 87.9%. Overall year-to-date percent of sellers in Long Lake receiving the original list price was down by 1.9% to close the year at 91.3%.

Most remarkably, Long Lake had one of the lowest average number of days for December 2009 and the year-to-date. In December 2008, the average was 132 days, which fell 65.9% to 45 days in December 2009.

The number of single-family homes in December 2008 was 134 homes on market, 22 being new listings. December 2009 saw the total number of homes on the market drop 10.4% to 120. Alternatively, townhouse and condo inventories saw a 32% increase between December 2008’s 25 units and December 2009’s 33 units. New market listings in December ‘09 were down 22.7% to 17 over the previous year. This change for new market listings follows the year-to-date trend: 443 in 2008 down to 425 in 2009.

Closed sales for December 2009 rose slightly while closings year-to-date saw a remarkable increase. In December ‘08 and year-end of 2008, the numbers of closed sales were 7 and 12 respectively. Closed sales for December ‘09 rose 71.4% to 12 with the year-to-date at 157 closings, a 51% increase over the previous year.

The median sales price for December 2008 to December 2009 dropped from $285,900 in 2008 to $139,900 in 2009. The median sales price for the year-to-date decreased 13.2% from $207,500 to $180,200 in 2008 and 2009 respectively. However, the percent of sellers receiving the original list price increased 13.8% from December 2008’s 83.8% to 95.4% in 2009. For the year-to-date in 2009, 89.2% percent of sellers in Mound received the original listing price (not accounting for previous listing prices), which decreased slightly by 4.2%.

The average number of days a home sat on the market fell by 50.8% from 235 days in December 2008 to 116 days in December 2009. These number likely are related to the dramatic decrease in median sales price over the previous year.

Mound has the most listings (single family and townhouse / condo units) by month and year-to-date, closed sales, and sellers receiving their original listing price (December ’09) on the market in the Lake Minnetonka area. If you’re a first time homebuyer looking for a property near the lake, let the Minnesota Real Estate Team help you answer any tax credit questions by attending their free mn first time homebuyer seminar. Or if you’re an investor looking to capitalize on the rental market in Mound, The Minnesota Real Estate Team can help you with all of your minnesota investment property needs.