Minnesota Real Estate Weekly Update

Finally some good news for the Twin Cities real estate market! Pending sales jumped significantly from the previous week. There were 757 newly signed purchase agreements, only down 8.9% compared to this same time last year. There were also 300 fewer properties put on the market this past week than the same time in 2007. A total of 2,078 listings were put on the market, and overall inventory still remains at 30,619, an increase of only 5.5% compared to this same time in 2007.

Much of the recent buyer activity has been caused by the increase of investor purchases. To put in bluntly, real estate is "on sale" here in the Twin Cities, and the die hard investors know just that. They are buying as much as they can literally get their hands on!

Our team, The Minnesota Real Estate Team, continues to offer monthly investment property seminars. If you have any interest in learning how you can get into investment property or continue on, feel free to give us a call at 952-223-1150. All of the agents on our team own investment property and can help you build your long term wealth through real estate.

Look for another real estate update next week!

Minnesota Real Estate Weekly Update

For the week ending March 8th, 2093 new listings were put onto the market here in the Twin Cities area. 682 properties received an acceptable offer and went pending, and 30,453 active listings remain on the market. The pending sales for this week dropped almost 19% compared to the same time last year.

Despite attractive interest rates, motivated sellers, and the plethora of properties to choose from, buyers still seem a but "unsure" about moving forward.

Without sounding too trite, it is an unbelievable time to be looking to purchase any real estate here in the Twin Cities. Owner occupied buyers and investors alike have a buying opportunity that many experts feel will not be back for a long, long time.

Our team, The Minnesota Real Estate Team, continues to move forward with optimism here in 2008. We have 148 accepted sales set to close already here for 2008, and our team goal is 500 transactions.

Whether you are a buyer or a seller who is looking to sell, please call us today at 952-223-1150. Our team is here to help you out however we can!

Look for another real estate update here next week!

Minnesota Real Estate Weekly Update

For the week ending March 1st, 2008, the Twin Cities real estate market did produce some good news. There were 680 pending sales for the week, a drop of only 4.9% compared to 2007. The number of pendings has steadily risen each week, showing increased buyer activity here in our market. There were 2014 new listings that went onto the market, an increase of 4% compared to 2007. Overall, there remains 30,112 active properties for sale here in the Twin Cities. This is an increase of 12.3% compared to 2007.

This past weeek, The Minnesota Real Estate Team learned that, based on our 2007 sales volume, we were the #42 RE/MAX team in the US for 2007. We also found out we were the #86 team in the world! In both Top 100 rankings, we were the only Minnesota RE/MAX team.

Year to date, the team has 138 sales on the books! Please contact us at 952-223-1150 to learn how we can help you get your home sold! Or if you are looking to buy, call or email to learn how our team can help you in this market.

Look for another real estate update next week!

Minnesota Real Estate Weekly Update

Finally, some good news for the Twin Cities real estate market!! The supply demand ratio for March 2008 is 8.72. This means there are 8.72 houses on the market for every one buyer. This is the lowest this rate has been in 9 months! Currently, there are 29,551 active listings on the market, an increase of 9.8% compared to this same time in 2007. 635 properties went pending this past week, a 16% drop compared to 2007, and 1,832 listings went onto the market, a decrease of 10.1% compared to 2007.

These numbers show in fact that the buyer is actively out shopping in our local market. Our team, The Minnesota Real Estate Team, is seeing increased traffic levels on our listings, as well increased buying activity with clients we are representing. Year to date, the team has sold 125 properties. Our goal in 2008 is to finish as one of the top 10 RE/MAX teams in the United States.

With that being said, you, the customer are our #1 priority. Are you looking to sell, to buy, you need to short sell? Whatever the situation may be, call us today at 952-223-1150.

There is a reason we have been the #1 RE/MAX team in Minnesota the last two years: we are hard working real estate agents here to work for you!

Look for another real estate update next week!

Macy's future in St. Paul hazy

As the chain cuts jobs nationwide, including hundreds in Minneapolis, analysts say more store closings may be needed
By Gita Sitaramiah
gsitaramiah@pioneerpress.com
Article Last Updated: 03/01/2008 03:16:04 AM CST

Macy's is slashing jobs and closing stores to cope with a shaky strategy and weak consumer spending. Could the downtown St. Paul store be a victim?

That's the question many who watch the twists and turns of struggling downtown retail in both of the Twin Cities are asking. The downtown St. Paul Macy's, formerly Marshall Field's, and Dayton's before that, has long been an underperforming store, and city officials in 2001 agreed to give its parent $6.3 million to keep it open.

"It's never done great numbers," said Jim McComb, a Minneapolis retail analyst. "Even when I was with Dayton Hudson, St. Paul was a frustration, and I left in '74."

It's not hard to see how sales would be slow. Walk through the store in midafternoon or during the weekend and few shoppers walk the aisles or comb through racks of clothing, which don't include designer brands like St. John or Armani or the more youthful Juicy Couture and BCBG lines available at the much larger downtown Minneapolis store.

On top of that, Macy's has faced disappointing sales and resistance from shoppers in some markets where the Macy's name replaced local favorites it absorbed as part of its acquisition of St. Louis-based May Department Stores in 2005. Marshall Field's was among the chains made over into the homogeneous national Macy's brand. Macy's, with a dozen Twin Cities locations, has faced criticism here for a decline in customer service and availability of higher-end brands.

Lori Brunner, a Thrivent Financial analyst in Minneapolis, said a natural next step for struggling Macy's is to close underperforming stores. "I do think Macy's should close more stores," she said.

A Macy's spokesman said there currently are no plans to close additional stores. In December, the retailer announced nine store closings, though none in Minnesota.

Cecile Bedor, St. Paul's planning and economic development director, declined interview requests through a spokeswoman, who said the city hasn't received notice of a downtown Macy's closing.

But the Cincinnati-based chain announced last month that it is consolidating staff around the country, including cutting 910 of the 950 jobs at the Minneapolis headquarters, with those functions moving to New York. Macy's also has had two smaller rounds of layoffs in the Twin Cities during the past couple of years. The recent consolidation came after a terrible January, when sales dropped a steeper-than-expected 7.1 percent.

If the downtown St. Paul store closes before the end of 2012, Macy's must pay back the city subsidy with interest, totaling almost $6.9 million, which amounts to around a miniscule one-half of 1 percent of Macy's capital expenditure budget, totaling $1.3 billion in 2006, Brunner said.

The penalty for an early pullout could be insignificant for Macy's, which owns its downtown real estate. "We feel it here because we live here, but relative to how big this company is and how much they spend on their stores, it is not meaningful," Brunner said.

Retail has struggled for years in St. Paul, and city officials doled out the subsidy to then-owner Minneapolis-based Target Corp. to keep the last department store in downtown alive.

The 45-year-old St. Paul store underwent a $22 million makeover at that time. It downsized from 225,000 square feet of shopping space to about 170,000 square feet. The shopping space previously had been equivalent to the Southdale store in Edina but was scaled down to the size of the Maplewood Mall store, because its revenue didn't justify as much space, store officials said at the time.

Part of the angst over losing a downtown department store is, what would become of the Macy's space?

Twin Cities real estate observers say this would be a difficult time for Macy's to sell the downtown building, which has an assessed value of $11.5 million, for another use. Downtown St. Paul has a glut of vacant office space, and the residential market is in a serious slump, though the market for office space and other uses could change in years to come. Experts say empty downtown department stores around the country typically are converted into mixed-used developments.

Many industry observers don't believe another retailer would want to take over an underperforming space. One notable exception might be Target Corp., which previously has explored opening a downtown Target store. A spokeswoman for Target Corp said in a statement, "Regarding Target's plans for St. Paul, we remain interested in downtown St. Paul and will continue to explore opportunities as they become available."

Andrea Christenson, a vice president at Colliers Turley Martin Tucker, believes a discounter such as Target could do a decent sales volume serving the everyday needs of workers and residents in downtown.

It might be a stretch. About 68,000 people work in downtown St. Paul, according to 2007 data from the Capital City Partnership, but that's less than half the downtown work force in Minneapolis, where Target has a store.

Downtown St. Paul's residential population more than doubled to 5,700 from 1970 to 2000, according to U.S. Census data, and jumped by another 600 to 1,700 since then, by varying estimates. But that's still far short of the more than 30,000 who live in downtown Minneapolis.

While Target might benefit from these numbers, Christenson doesn't believe the same would be true for other retailers who'd need to attract more shopper traffic downtown for sufficient sales.

"Why would you go downtown to Macy's and shop and deal with parking and everything else when you can go to a mall, like you can go to Rosedale and park for free, and you have all these other stores to go to?" she said.

In the end, Macy's decision to close more stores will be strictly a numbers game, said Howard Davidowitz, chairman of Davidowitz & Associates Inc., a national retail consulting and investment banking firm in New York.

The steps already taken, such as reducing shopping space and staff, might even help prevent an imminent closing in downtown, since Macy's owns the site. The next step could be even fewer departments and reduced store hours. "You'd do less business, but maybe it would come out better that way," Davidowitz said. "It might be in some cases cheaper and better and more financially advantageous to keep something open rather than close it."