The Thing Unstated

The front page of yesterday’s StarTribune had this story on it:

While sales of existing homes in the Twin Cities metro area dropped a whopping 14 percent over the past 12 months, sales of homes priced at $1 million-plus jumped 4 percent, according to data from the Minneapolis Area Association of Realtors.

“People that own these expensive homes are not affected by the market very much,” said Linda Blyth, director of Coldwell Banker Burnet’s Previews-Distinctive Homes Division. “If they see something they want and they see value, they have the money to buy it.”

In large part that’s because upper-bracket buyers often pay cash and aren’t concerned with what’s happening with mortgage interest rates or the state of the mortgage industry or even the snowballing foreclosure crisis.

And in many cases wealthy buyers don’t have to sell before they buy or they’re getting a fat relocation package that includes moving expenses and a buyout of their previous house.

Of course, another reason could be that in Minnesota, just as elsewhere in the US, the rich are getting richer and so can afford to buy homes, whereas everyone else is falling behind.  But it’s taboo to make that sort of connection, so it’s not made.