NW Minn. leads state in home price spike

Most regions of Minnesota saw housing prices increase over the past year, according to the Minnesota Association of Realtors.

In August, the median sales price for a Minnesota home was $156,000, an increase of 11.5 percent compared with the same month a year ago. The median sales price in the state has now risen for six consecutive months.

The housing market is definitively on the rebound, Minnesota Association of Realtors CEO Christopher Galler said.

"It's been fairly healthy for the state for almost the last 12 months," he said. "We've seen positive numbers in transactions. We've been seeing positive numbers in median prices since the beginning of the year. So, we're seeing good movement. It's not fast. It's not supposed to be fast. It's a long-term investment."

On average, home sellers last month received 93 percent of their initial asking price. Home sale prices were flat in the south central part of the state. But prices rose nearly 40 percent in the northwest, as the region benefited from the booming economy in North Dakota.

"You've got a lot of people who are leaving parts of North Dakota who have lived there a long time who are cashing out now that the oil economy is taking off," Galler said. "We've had a number of people up there saying that there's a lot of cash moving from North Dakota into Minnesota for real estate purposes."