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MinnEcon Blog
Paul Tosto

MN economist sees housing values continuing to slip

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Deep into a Monday Midday discussion on jobs and budgets, Minnesota state economist Tom Stinson made some important points about housing with a "guess" that local home values could slip other three to five percent.

"It's going to be a lot better than it was last year, but that's still just a really miserable market," Stinson said of housing and home construction generally.

In 2008, he said, the U.S. had nearly one million housing starts, which was the lowest number since World War II. "In 2009, we had less than 600,000...This year we could have a 25 percent increase and it's still going to be the second lowest number of housing starts since WWII."

Foreclosure and short sale problems "are going to be depressing housing prices of existing homes for a while, he added.

"Our guess is we're probably going to lose another three to five percent locally and nationally on housing prices before things turn around."

Stinson's comments surprised me because the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors in December said the Twin Cities market was on "recovery road."

Maybe there's no conflict between the two statements. Maybe "Recovery Road" is a lot longer than we think.

Click on the play button and start at the 39:20 mark to hear Stinson's housing comments

And then tell us what you see and if it jibes with Stinson's forecast. Post below or use this form to tell us what the housing market is like around you.

Click on the map icons below to read what Minnesotans in MPR's Public Insight Network have been telling us about the housing climate.