MANKATO — Justin Hartman and his girlfriend, Aubrey Iwanicki, didn’t set out to buy a house.
But buy one they did, on Jan. 12, and they couldn’t be happier about their abrupt decision.
“It’s pretty funny,” Hartman said. “We weren’t expecting to buy a house. We’re in a rental now, and we wanted to stay in the Mankato area. We thought, let’s just get pre-approved in case we saw anything we liked. We started looking, and there’s not a whole lot on the market.
“We weren’t going to be purchasing a house, but we started looking at the market. We saw the benefits of this house. We worried, what if nothing like it was on the market when we were ready to buy? So we decided to pull the trigger and put in a bid on the house. And we got it.”
Inventory is low, said Hartman’s Realtor, Bonnie Kruger of Century 21 Atwood Realty. It’s normal for this time of year, she said. Current homeowners are also enjoying their lower interest rates and are thus staying put. “They’re staying home, which creates a lack of inventory,” Kruger said.
Still, it’s better than last year at this time, according to Minnesota Realtors. The south-central region had 150 new listings in December 2023 compared with 92 last year; 178 closed sales compared with 151 last year; and 2.2 months’ supply of inventory compared to 1.6 last year.
There’s no predicting what type of market lies ahead, Kruger said.
“If interest rates come down, we’ll be very busy,” she said. “If not, it’ll be like it is now.”
Jen True of True Real Estate in Mankato said she checked with two lenders on Wednesday and found out their interest rates were at 6.25 and 5.875 percent. Those rates depend on a homebuyer’s credit score and other factors, True said.
“To me, there’s a lot of optimism in the year to come in the local real estate market,” True said. “We are feeling it already. Last year there were quite a few agents who decided to put their licenses on ice, to get out of the business entirely. We’re seeing that turn around.”
The benefit of listing a house during the winter is that home sellers are targeting a diligent market. “In the winter, the buyers need to buy. They’re not just looking,” she said.
Hartman and Iwanicki were fortunate to get their house the first day it went on the market. They negotiated with the sellers and wound up purchasing for about $4,000 less than the home’s asking price, Hartman said. This all occurred one day after they decided to go house shopping.
Hartman and Iwanicki’s new house is a four-bedroom, 1½ bathroom, with tons of storage in an unfinished basement. It’s near the top of the hill in Mankato, on Adams Street. With Kruger, they looked at a handful of other homes, but none met the bar for them.
“We talked about it throughout the next day,” Hartman said. “When we were ready to buy, we said we’ll just put in an offer and see what happens.”
Other houses they saw needed extensive work, weren’t well located or had small yards. They either had “one big issue or a bunch of minor issues,” Hartman said.
When Kruger alerted him their offer had been accepted, he was “over the moon excited,” Hartman said. “My girlfriend was working. I texted her and she was also very excited.”
As for fellow first-time homebuyers, Hartman has the following advice: Prioritize what you’re looking for because sometimes you must make concessions. He wanted a big yard, for example, along with a big kitchen. The house they bought has a big yard but a small kitchen.
“You’ll ask yourself, what are you willing to go without but have something else instead,” he said. “It’s important to understand where you want to make those sacrifices. And know that closing costs can be pretty expensive.”