I was reading an article posted by the Wall Street Journal this weekend regarding their “House of the Week” series and the success the owners have had or not had on selling their home for 2006. According to the highlighted high end homes in their Weekend Journal, of the 46 homes featured from October 2005 to September 2006, only 14 have sold, and four are currently under contract. It is also interesting to note that the average sold price was 16% below the original list price.

While these homes are not representative of the national market due to their price (most average $10 Million), the sales statistics are following the national trend. Luxury homes also showed signs of peaking in 2005 and then have been slowly declining with the rest of the market since 2006. According to the Wall Street Journal, the highlighted homes that were priced $15 Million or more have sold more than those homes priced lower. It appears uber-priced homes are not affected as much by the decline because sellers can be more flexible with their bottom line and a lot of times buyers shopping in that price range tend to pay with cash.

While I can’t list every luxury market in the Twin Cities area, I will be posting results for the 2006 luxury market for select areas in upcoming posts. I will specifically be compiling data on what price ranges have sold and what hasn’t, similar to the Wall Street News Journal.

Is there a Minneapolis Luxury market that you would like me to report on? Let me know and I will see what the 2006 market has done!