The release says:
…ranging in size from 1,200 to 2,400 square feet. Priced from the $230s…
So I assume the 1200 sq ft homes are the ones priced in the $230s and they go up from there. The ASP this last quarter was $214, so these homes will continue to help raise their ASP going forward.
The houses are in Big Lake, which is northwest of Minneapolis, and one county away from what’s usually considered to be the metro area. The fairly new Northstar rail line must be making a difference, because the rush hour commute by car would be hard.
I’ve looked up the LGI Homes communities here in western Washington State where I live. Most of them are pretty inconvenient from a commuting perspective. Of course it depends where you work, but if you work in Tacoma, Seattle or Everett they are a pretty long drive.
There’s light rail going in here, but it’s quite a ways from truly servicing the area. But I suppose as more of the system is completed, those home values will go up considerably. Quite possibly people are willing to suffer a few years of long drive times in order to get into a house they can afford now.
“The houses are in Big Lake, which is northwest of Minneapolis, and one county away from what’s usually considered to be the metro area. The fairly new Northstar rail line must be making a difference, because the rush hour commute by car would be hard.”
I live in a 3rd ring suburb of Minneapolis and work in downtown Minneapolis. In rush hour traffic it’s a 25 minute commute for me one way to downtown Minneapolis. The closer to downtown you get, the more lanes/wider the freeway is.
Being generous, Big Lake, MN is a 5th ring “suburb” located mid-point between Minneapolis and St. Cloud. St. Cloud is an entirely different MSA (metropolitan service area) that is not considered part of Minneapolis-St. Paul MSA. Lots of people commute from Big Lake to Minneapolis via car, but it’s easily over an hour commute by car one way. There is very heavy traffic during rush hour both ways and not as many lanes of freeway out towards Big Lake.
The North Star Commuter Rail is a full size passenger train/ locomotive that takes 52 minutes (according to the Metropolitan Transit Commission schedule to get from Big Lake to the MN Twins baseball stadium at the edge of downtown Minneapolis. From there you would wait for either light rail transit or a bus another (?) minutes to the heart of downtown Minneapolis,which is 5 or so minutes away.
Big Lake is a blue collar bedroom community that is known for having inexpensive land relative to those suburbs located closer to the downtown core of the Twin Cities.
I personally would really not want to make that drive back and forth every day, but thousands of people do.