Home prices plunge, sales tick up

Closed Sales
Closed home sales are above the low reached last June.
MPR Graphic/Bill Catlin

"Sold" signs went up at 2,070 homes in February, up 3 percent from the same month last year. But the median sales price dropped 23 percent over the same period, hitting $150,000.

The wide price split continues between traditional sales and lender-mediated sales, which involve homes in foreclosure or where the mortgage balance is more than the home's worth.

The median price of a lender-mediated home was nearly $128,000. That's 30 percent less than the median price of a traditional sale.

On a seasonally-adjusted basis, closed home sales in February posted another small increase, 1.7 percent, over the month before.

The number of closed sales for the month of February was about 13 percent higher than the bottom reached last June.