The foreclosed homes also skewed the latest data on home sales. The increase of recent pending sales in Minnesota is largely due to the transactions of foreclosed homes or short sales.
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The number of buyers who signed home purchase agreements rose in July -- the first year-over-year monthly increase in pending sales in the metro area in 30 months.
Economists say that it's still too soon to call a housing market recovery. Part of July's increase came from sales of bank- or lender-owned homes, and the sharp increase in the number of such properties means median home sale prices continue to fall. Still, the data served as a rare bit of good news for the region's battered housing industry.
"A one-month upswing is good news, but we'll need to keep our eyes on this," said Kevin Knudsen, president of the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.
Pending home sales rose 6.2 percent in July compared with July 2007. For the first seven months, however, pending sales -- those for which purchase agreements have been signed -- are down 7.6 percent compared with the same period last year, according to a monthly report released Tuesday by metro-area Realtor associations.
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