It is my work to know and understand the Alexandria marketplace to the nth degree.  More knowledge of the marketplace, I feel makes me a better real estate agent.  To this end, I absorb any and all data that I can find that pertains to real estate.  And quite frankly, that is just about everything that I find.   It seems that most everything connects back to the very soil on which we live, work and play.  Maybe that’s why I stayed with the job for almost 28 years now.  I’d have thought my a.d.d. would have kicked in long before and found me some new adventure elsewhere.  That didn’t happen, and I don’t see it happening in the future either.

Enough of that, the condo market…let’s take a look.  This market has had it’s “glory days’ too.  But even in the best of times, the sales in the condo sector for Douglas County were comparatively 15% of what was sold in the single-family housing sector (condos: 60 sales in 2004 vs. houses: 398 sales in 2004).  In 2009, the sales ratio has fallen to less than 9% against the houses sold.  There are a number of factors that this can be attributed to.  The most predominant would be the foreclosure business.  I do not have a good handle on the percentage of sales that took place last year were bank owned.  When a foreclosure sale takes place, it is a “dead end” sales transaction.  The home is empty, thereby displacing no one.  A vast majority of the condo/townhome sales are from singles to empty nesters that are down sizing upon the sale of their home.  When their home doesn’t sell, or at the price they were expecting, their next move becomes in jeopardy.

We have another full year of foreclosures and unemployment issues.  Unless we strike oil in the streets of Alexandria, MN, I don’t expect any cataclysmic market swings.  So with that, here are the numbers…

Sold and Closed in Douglas County from January 1st, 2009 to December 31st 2009…and in the Residential Condo/Townhome section (there is a Lakeshore Condo/Townhome section); there were 24 properties sold.  I ran the report back to 1995 just to see, but after 1998, the computer data becomes a little sketchy).  Nonetheless, here’s how it stacks up:

• 2009                                  24 Residential Condo/Townhomes Closed
• 2008                                  27
• 2007                                 38
• 2006                                 49
• 2005                                 37
• 2004                                 48
• 2003                                 40
• 2002                                 25
• 2001                                 21
• 2000                                34
• 1999                                 18
• 1998                                 17
• 1997                                 9
• 1996                                 
• 1995                                  x

Source:   Greater Alexandria Area Association of Realtors Multiple Listing Service