June New Home Sales

Exactly Where Are All Those $206k New Homes??

As [new home] sales rose, median prices . . . continued to fall, slipping to $206,200 from $232,100 in June a year ago.

--Jack Healy, "New U.S. Home Sales Rise Sharply as Prices Fall"; The New York Times (7/27/09)

The big financial headline today is an unexpected monthly rise in new homes sales. According to the Commerce Dept., June sales of new, single-family homes increased 11%, to a seasonally adjusted rate of 384,000.

What caught my eye, though, was the median price: $206,200.

Suffice to say that that's not the price of new homes going up in Edina, around Minneapolis' city lakes, or in Minnetonka.

Rather, that's the price of new homes in places like Albertville, Ostego, and Farmington -- areas 30 miles or further away from the city center, where developers threw up tract homes by the thousands.

Closer in, new homes are strictly custom, one-at-time "leapfrogs" from former tear-downs to, well . . . something much nicer.

A quick look on MLS confirms that.

Since 2008, 24 new "spec" homes (built for resale) were listed in MLS Areas 300 and 309 (roughly covering from Cedar Lake to Lake Harriet).

Average price: $1.03M. Median Price: just under $800k.

(The difference is explained by several, extremely high-end new homes in Lowry Hill, which pull the average up.)

Home Showcase: 1802 Colfax So.

More Than Meets the Eye (For a Change)

Where: 1802 Colfax Ave. South, in Minneapolis' Lowry Hill neighborhood

What: all brick 6BR/5BA; almost 6,400 FSF on a double lot

How much: $1.195M

When: originally listed 8/08; two, $100k price cuts since then

It isn't often these days that the photos on MLS don't do justice to the listed home. In fact, more and more, the online photos are unduly flattering, leaving prospective Buyers disappointed once they're inside.

This isn't that home.

With 630 square feet, the cavernous Living Room alone (pictured above) is the size of a small South Minneapolis single family home.

But the physical size doesn't begin to do justice to the feeling you get standing in the room.

In a word, it's . . . sumptuous.

The richness of the millwork, the grandness of the room dimensions (also created by the high ceilings), the detailed appointments -- all these things simply don't come through the pictures.

Standing in the room, you get the feeling that it was built for a Vanderbilt or a Rockefeller.

In fact, the owner is the Minnesota equivalent: a MacMillan, from the Cargill founding family.