(Not So) Exceptional Properties*

Upper Bracket Woes

Although Edina has been a housing standout in the current downturn, it, too, has pockets of excess inventory, and homes that have suffered serial price cuts -- and still aren't selling.

Just one street in Edina's Country Club section, Sunnyslope, now has six homes on the market, at prices ranging from $729,000 to $5 million. The market time ranges from just over 3 months to almost three years(!) (lots of green lawns in the MLS shots -- never a good sign in the Twin Cities in January).

What's going on?

Sunnyslope Sellers

Unfortunately, not just one thing. The economy, of course. The fact that anyone buying one of these homes likely needs a jumbo loan, which now carries a huge premium to so-called conventional or conforming loans (under $417k). The fact that people with the means to buy upper bracket homes have likely had their assets whacked, and now, their jobs threatened.

Finally, you'd speculate that the "Sunnyslope inventory glut" is emboldening Buyers to make, shall we say, "aggressive" offers that Sellers have been rejecting.

What you can categorically rule out is some sort of long-term decline, or a neighborhood-specific issue: Country Club is -- and is likely to remain -- a premier Twin Cities address.

So what happens next?

You'd guess some combination of more price reductions, Sellers who take their homes off the market, and/or Buyers who raise their offers enough to entice one or more of the Sunnyslope Sellers.

Although Edina so far has been spared the pox of short sales and foreclosures affecting other parts of town, that, too, could change with a deepening recession.

*Edina Realty has a special marketing group for upper bracket home called "Exceptional Properties," which includes two of the six Sunnyslope homes.