Metro home market continues to improve

The Twin Cities housing market continues showing signs of improvement.

The Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors says pending home sales in September were up by 11 percent over the previous year. The median sale price was about 12 percent higher, at $174,000.

The Realtors group says the missing component has been seller confidence — the number of properties brought to the market in September was down by 4 percent. And the total number of homes on the market in the Twin Cities was about 16,000 — near a nine-year low.

Cari Linn, president of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors, said it's possible the upcoming presidential election might be giving more people a wait-and-see attitude.

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"It's uncertainty, and so people have a tendency to just hold back and sit tight to see what's going to happen, you know, if any changes are going to happen within the next administration that might really affect them as a consumer," Linn said.

Linn said the other problem contributing to the decline in the number of homes up for sale is that many homeowners are still underwater on their mortgages and can't sell.

Still, Realtors were celebrating the market's composition. The percentage of new listings that were foreclosures or short sales was at 30 percent — that's the lowest it's been since June 2008.

The Realtors group says homes are also selling in less time than a year ago.