January presented a tale of two cities for the local housing market, and I'm not talking about Minneapolis and St. Paul.
The Twin Cities metro was one of only two major U.S. markets to see rentals rates drop in January compared to the same time last year, according to a new report from Zillow.
Nationally, rents were up 3.3 percent year-over-year in the first month of 2015 while the Twin Cities market experienced a -0.3 percent drop to $1,502. The only other city to see a decrease was Chicago. Our fellow Upper Midwest city in Illinois watch rental rates drop -0.5 percent year-over-year.
That's good news for renters, but perhaps discomforting for the multitude of apartment complexes under construction across the metro.
Meanwhile, Minneapolis-St. Paul's home values in January rose faster, at 5.9 percent, than the national average of 5.4 percent.
The median home is the Twin Cities has a value of $212,600 while the national median is $178,500. For comparison, Chicago's home values also grew, but at a much slower rate of 3.6 percent.
However, Mary Bujold, president of Maxfield Research in Minneapolis, cautions that Zillow's January Real Estate Market Report may not be a complete snapshot of the Twin Cities rental market.
"I'm certainly not worried about it," Bujold said."Yes, we are seeing minor modifications in some submarkets, but overall we are seeing an increase in rents."
