Trent Seaman
Team Pemberton Real Estate
Personalized, honest guidance for buyers and sellers across Western Hennepin and Lower Anoka County — from your first search to closing day.
From your first search to the closing table, I'll help you find the right home and negotiate the right deal.
Strategic pricing, professional marketing, and clear communication to get your home sold for top dollar.
Real, local data — not guesswork — so you can make confident decisions in any market.
August 2026 · Minnesota & National Housing Report
Inventory is up, interest rates have shifted, and buyers now have more leverage than at any point in the last several years — with real opportunities to secure a home under listing price.
| Metric | Value | YoY |
|---|---|---|
| New Listings | 7,388 | ▲ 8.0% |
| Pending Sales | 4,534 | ▲ 3.0% |
| Inventory | 11,586 | ▲ 6.7% |
| Median Price | $408,000 | ▲ 3.3% |
| Months Supply | 3.0 Months | ▲ 7.1% |
| Days on Market | 40 Days | Flat |
| Metric | Value | Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Existing-Home Sales | 4.09M | ▲ 2.8% YoY |
| National Median Price | $440,600 | Record |
| Active Properties | 1.56M | ▲ 1.3% YoY |
| National Supply | 4.6 Months | Steady |
| Days on Market | 28 Days | Efficient |
| First-Time Buyers | 33% Share | Active |
A simple, step-by-step PDF guide covering everything from financing to closing day.
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Buying your first home is exciting, and it's also full of moving parts. After years of helping Twin Cities families through the process, I see the same mistakes come up again and again — the good news is they're all avoidable.
1. Confusing pre-qualification with pre-approval
A pre-qualification is a quick estimate based on what you tell a lender. A pre-approval means the lender has verified your income, assets, and credit. In a competitive market, sellers take pre-approved buyers seriously and pre-qualified buyers much less so. Get the real pre-approval before you tour a single home.
2. Budgeting only for the mortgage payment
Your monthly payment is more than principal and interest. Property taxes, homeowners insurance, and utilities all add up, and Minnesota winters make heating costs worth planning for. Set aside money for maintenance and repairs too, because something will need attention sooner than you'd like.
3. Believing you need 20% down
This myth keeps a lot of people renting longer than they need to. Many loan programs allow much smaller down payments, and there are down payment assistance options for eligible buyers. Talk to a lender about what's actually available before you decide you're not ready.
4. Skipping or rushing the inspection
Fresh paint and great staging can hide a lot. A thorough inspection protects you from expensive surprises like foundation issues, roof problems, or aging systems. It also gives you leverage to negotiate repairs or credits. Never waive it just to make an offer look stronger.
5. Making big financial moves before closing
Financing a new car, opening store credit cards, or changing jobs between pre-approval and closing can jeopardize your loan. Lenders re-check your finances right before closing, so keep everything steady until you have the keys.
The bottom line
Buying a home doesn't have to be stressful when you have the right information and the right team. If you're thinking about buying, I'd love to help you avoid these pitfalls and find a home you love.
Trent Seaman | Team Pemberton
612.408.5722 | trent@teampemberton.com
Every seller wants the same thing: top dollar, quickly. The good news is these goals don't conflict — the homes that sell fastest are usually the ones priced right from day one.
They often net more than homes that start high and chase the market down.
Why the First Two Weeks Matter
A new listing gets its biggest surge of attention right after it hits the market. Buyers with saved searches, agents with active clients, and shoppers who check listings daily all see it at once. If your price is off in that window, that momentum is hard to get back.
Homes that sit collect a stigma. Buyers start to wonder what's wrong with it, and they know they have leverage. Price reductions rarely recover the ground lost to those extra weeks.
Start With Comparable Sales, Not Your Hopes
The most reliable way to price is by looking at comparable sales ("comps"): homes similar to yours that closed recently, ideally within the last 90 days and close by. Look for similar:
What matters is what buyers actually paid, not what neighbors are asking. Active listings show your competition, but closed sales show your value.
Beware the Emotional Price
Sellers often price based on what they put into the home: the kitchen remodel, the landscaping, the years of memories. Buyers don't pay for your costs. They pay for what similar homes offer them today.
Improvements help, but rarely dollar for dollar. Be ready to hear that a project that cost you a lot adds less to your price than you hoped.
Don't Overprice to "Leave Room to Negotiate"
It's tempting to list high and expect to come down. It usually backfires:
Pricing at or just below market value tends to draw more showings, and sometimes multiple offers that push the price up on their own.
Read the Current Market
The right strategy depends on conditions:
Local trends, interest rates, and seasonality all play a part, so a local agent's read of your specific neighborhood beats any national headline.
Think in Price Thresholds
Buyers search in round-number brackets. A home listed at $505,000 may miss everyone filtering for "up to $500,000." Pricing just under a common search threshold can put your home in front of significantly more buyers.
Get Your Home Ready to Support the Price
Even a well-priced home needs to show well. Before listing:
A home that looks well cared for supports its price and reduces buyer pushback in negotiations.
Watch the Data, Then Adjust
Once you're live, pay attention to online views, showing counts, and feedback. Strong traffic with no offers may suggest a price or condition issue. Little traffic at all usually points to price. If you need to adjust, do it early and decisively. A modest reduction in the first couple of weeks beats a series of small cuts that signal desperation.
The Bottom Line
Pricing to sell fast isn't about leaving money on the table. It's about meeting the market where it is, capturing peak buyer attention, and letting competition work in your favor. The right price starts with data, not emotion.
Thinking about selling? Team Pemberton can prepare a custom market analysis for your home. Call Trent at 612.408.5722 or visit pembertonhomesteam.com.
If you've been reading the national headlines about housing and wondering how that squares with what you're seeing in your own neighborhood, you're not imagining things — the Twin Cities market right now is anything but one-size-fits-all.
Prices are stable, not skyrocketing. The median home price across the metro is sitting somewhere in the $380,000–$420,000 range, depending on the data source and time of year. The national forecast calls for modest home price increases of 1–2% in 2026, and the Twin Cities is expected to follow suit. That's a healthy shift from the double-digit jumps we saw a few years back — good news if you're a buyer who's been priced out, and still solid if you're a seller sitting on years of built-up equity.
Inventory is loosening up, but it's still tight by historical standards. New listings increased 5.8% in July, giving buyers more homes to choose from, and while inventory remains below pre-pandemic levels, the trend is moving in a positive direction. Translation: you have more to choose from than you did a year or two ago, but well-priced, move-in-ready homes in good locations are still going to draw a crowd.
It's a "which house" market, not a "which direction" market. This is the part the headlines miss. A great house can still be extremely competitive, a compromised property may sit, and a condo may take longer than either — even within one building versus the building next door. Rather than one uniform trend, we're seeing a much more selective, property-specific market play out street by street.
Location still rules. Established neighborhoods and first-ring suburbs remain the tightest. Move-in-ready homes outperform dated ones, strong locations shrug off seasonal softness, and thoughtful renovations command real premiums — a pattern showing up clearly in areas like Southwest Minneapolis, Edina, St. Louis Park, Minnetonka, and Plymouth, where buyers will sometimes wait months for the right combination of lot, layout, and condition.
The fundamentals behind it all are still strong. The Twin Cities was recently named one of the top 10 housing markets for 2026 by the National Association of Realtors, supported by strong job growth, a high concentration of millennial households, and better alignment between local prices and incomes than many other metros. That's the kind of foundation that tends to hold up even when the month-to-month noise gets louder.
What this means for you
Curious what any of this means for your specific neighborhood or price range? I'm always happy to pull the numbers for your street and walk through it with you — no pressure, just information.
— Trent Seaman, Team Pemberton
Everything you need to know if you're considering buying or selling in Orono.
A walkthrough of one of my latest listings in Hopkins.
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"Trent was efficient, proactive, and communicative through the entire purchase."
"He made our first home purchase so much less stressful than we expected."
"Always available to answer questions, even outside normal hours."
"Trent knows the local market inside and out and it showed in our negotiation."
"Professional, patient, and genuinely cared about finding us the right home."
"Great communicator from our first showing all the way through closing."
"Trent helped us sell quickly and for more than we expected."
"Highly recommend — knowledgeable, honest, and easy to work with."
"Made a complicated process feel simple. Couldn't have asked for better."
Trent has over 15 years of selling and marketing experience at the executive level, and 6 years of that experience is in real estate serving the Twin Cities. He's lived in St. Louis Park for the past 25 years, where he and his wife Amy of 30 years have raised their three children.
His success in real estate comes from his ability to communicate clearly, educate his clients on the buying and selling process, and advocate on their behalf so they feel supported, satisfied, and great about their experience. His partnership with Pemberton Real Estate lets him leverage top-tier marketing, technology, and resources to give clients the best service possible.
Trent specializes in first-time homebuyers, clients relocating to the Twin Cities, and families — and he'd love to help you find the home that's the perfect fit for you.
It depends on the loan program — some conventional loans allow as little as 3% down, and certain programs offer 0% down for qualified buyers. I can connect you with a lender to review your options.
From your first showing to closing, most purchases take 30–60 days once you're under contract, though the search itself can take longer depending on inventory and your criteria.
Use the free valuation form above, or reach out directly — I'll put together a detailed comparative market analysis based on real, recent sales in your neighborhood.
You're not required to, but a buyer's agent typically costs you nothing out of pocket and provides negotiation experience, market knowledge, and protection throughout the transaction.
I focus on Western Hennepin County and Lower Anoka County — see the full list of cities above — but I'm happy to help anywhere in the Twin Cities metro.
Just reach out through the contact form below, call, or text — we'll set up a quick call to talk through your goals and next steps.
Yes — this is one of the most common situations I help with. We'll build a timeline that works for your specific move, whether that means bridge financing, a rent-back, or a contingent offer.
Ready to talk buying, selling, or just have a question? I'd love to hear from you.