MAAR (Minneapolis Area Association of realtors) has just released another awesome set of stats on the Twin Cities marketplace.

Analysis

The gradual decline in home sales has been continuous since late 2005 and isn’t showing signs of letting up. Predicting exactly when that will change is an inexact science, but it’s becoming clear that our eventual recovery will be a multi-year adventure.

A lot of attention has been given to those consumers placed in precarious financial positions by the downturn in the market and understandably so. But what’s often ignored are the traditional stories the excited first-time home buyers who can finally stop renting or the elderly couple living comfortably off the wealth created by decades of home ownership. The vast majority of Twin Cities residents are not being burned by the housing market.

Sellers face a challenging market right now, there’s no way to sugarcoat it. But if you’re a first-time home buyer or a second-home buyer with no home to sell of your own, you may well regret not getting into the market during 2007.

What does all this mean? Inventory is way up, sales are way down, sales prices are back to 2005 numbers, affordability is still down due to interest rates.