As a listing agent who lives in the Nokomis Minneapolis neighborhood, I get this question often. Everybody hears that the market has changed and that the median house price went up 14% over last year. There is some truth to that, but it's not as simple as it sounds.

The 14% appreciation is the increase in median sales price for the entire Twin Cities Metro Area, including all property types such as foreclosures, short sales, condos, townhouses and single family homes. We can break this data down to just non-foreclosure, non-short sale, single family homes, as one example in the Nokomis area. If you look at the chart, that is exactly what it represents, a 5.3% appreciation over last year for the Nokomis area.

This chart also shows that the bulk of the 14% appreciation is coming from foreclosed homes increasing in pricing. This is due to a few factors. For one, there are so many less foreclosed homes available bring supply to extremely low numbers. This puts pressure on demand, which increases the price. Economics 101.

So with a 5.3% appreciation rate, does that mean that MY home appreciated 5.3%? Maybe. As with all averages or medians, some houses are higher, and some houses are lower. To get a better idea of the pricing for your specific home, please feel free to call me or email.

The overall Twin Cities appreciation for non-foreclosures, non-short sales, single family homes is similar at 4.1%, once you break it down the same way. So the Nokomis area is very similar to the overall Twin Cities area market.

Steven Hong - RE/MAX Results  - (952) 915-2252