In this November’s election, vote for candidates up and down the ballot that will prioritize homeownership opportunities, advance ways to increase starter home inventory, and lower the costs of housing for more Minnesotans.

Minnesota’s housing market has a complicated history. Knowing our homeownership history could build a better future for homeownership in Minnesota.

As interest rates inched higher, more Twin Cities homebuyers were forced to press pause on their home buying journey in June.

Minnesota’s housing market has been on a rollercoaster ride over the last two years and would-be homeowners have been taken along for the ride.

For over a year now, Minnesota’s housing market has been near crisis levels for months. With low inventory, rising interest rates, and an extremely competitive market, the process of searching for and buying a new home has become a nightmare for most buyers.

With no agreement in place at the end of the Minnesota legislative session, housing language and proposals that had been in play in the Housing Omnibus Bill, were left behind.

According to the Minneapolis Area REALTORS and the Saint Paul Area Association of Realtors the median home price rose 10.0 percent to reach a new record of $370,000 in April.

In response to growing concerns regarding inflation, the Federal Reserve has been steadily increasing federal funds rates throughout the first half of this year. Since the beginning of the year rates have increased over two percent. Now, the Fed has announced an additional rate hike­– the largest rate jump in over two decades.

Looking to learn more about the issues surrounding the availability and affordability of housing in Minnesota, the Legislative Commission on Housing Affordability recently invited a slate of speakers to their October meeting to share data and possible solutions.

Minnesota, like most of the nation, is facing a housing supply crisis. Inventory of both new and existing homes for sale are at historical lows. In 2018 Freddie Mac estimated the United States had a shortage of 2.5 million homes. In the fourth quarter of 2020, they estimated that shortage had grown to 3.8 million homes nationwide.

The legislature isn’t even in session, but that’s not stopping a bipartisan group of legislators from addressing pressing housing issues.

Regrettably, the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area is home to the largest homeownership gap between white and Black households in the entire country. And this gap is only growing.

After months of working through a remote legislative session by zoom, there are a number of bills moving through the process that that would impact the housing industry. Several of these have advanced through the committee process and await further discussion in floor debates or in the larger omnibus finance bills that will be developed and voted upon later in the spring.

Despite recent increases, the millennial homeownership rate continues to trail previous generations. According to the Census Bureau’s Current Population Study and an Apartment List renters survey, though the millennial homeownership rate is rising, the generational homeownership gap persists and the impacts of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic have reinforced the trend for years to come.

After a year that has shown that the value of home has never been greater, the Parade of Homes invites tour-goers to step inside more than 350 new homes to connect with local builders and discover their next home.

With a renewed bipartisan and bi-cameral interest in housing policy, the Minnesota state legislature created two new housing committees for 2021.

It turns out homeowners place more value in the emotional equity from owning a home over the financial equity.