Redemption rate
A redemption rate is the share of foreclosure sales in which the owner reclaims the property before the redemption period expires.
It is one of the most useful figures in Minnesota distressed property and one of the least published, for a reason that is structural rather than accidental.
Why nobody publishes one#
A redemption produces a recorded certificate of redemption — an event, dated, findable.
A failure to redeem produces nothing. Under Minn. Stat. 580.12 the sheriff's certificate simply becomes title on the last day of the period. No document is filed. No notice is sent.
So measuring the rate means measuring an absence: tracking every sale, computing every expiry date, and checking whether anything happened before it. There is no record to count.
What Govire observes#
Across 319 resolved sheriff's sale redemption windows: 109 redeemed by the owner — 34.2 percent.
Those are windows anchored on the sheriff's sale, in the counties currently tracked, resolved rather than still running.
Tax judgment redemption windows are excluded. They are a different process on a three-year clock, and blending them into a mortgage foreclosure figure would describe neither.
Homestead is the strongest split#
| Windows | Redeemed | Rate | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homestead | 171 | 66 | 38.6% |
| Non-homestead | 116 | 28 | 24.1% |
An owner occupying the property is materially more likely to reclaim it. That is unsurprising and it is worth having measured: a homesteaded property in foreclosure has someone with a reason to find the money, and a non-homestead one frequently does not.
Homestead status was known for 287 of the 319. The remaining 32 redeemed at 46.9 percent, which is higher than either known group — so the unknowns may differ systematically from the rest, and the comparison above is stated on the 287.
What the owner paid relative to value#
Where the bid-to-value ratio is known — 159 of the 319, Hennepin only:
| Bid as share of value | Windows | Redeemed | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under 50% | 31 | 18 | 58.1% |
| 50–80% | 79 | 34 | 43.0% |
| 80% or more | 50 | 10 | 20.0% |
The pattern is intuitive once stated. Where the sale price is far below what the property is worth, there is equity worth reclaiming and the owner acts. Where the bid approaches full value, there is little left to save.
By county#
Hennepin, 160 windows, 38.8 percent. Washington, 66 windows, 24.2 percent. Dakota, 61 windows, 26.2 percent. Anoka, 30 windows, 46.7 percent — a sample small enough that two cases either way move it several points.
Two further counties appear in the data with a single window each. No rate is published for those, because one observation is not a rate.
What the figure is not#
It is not a statewide rate. It covers the counties tracked, over the period tracked, on resolved windows.
And it will move as more windows resolve — 959 were still open at the time of measurement, and 75 had expired without a detectable outcome. A rate computed on early resolutions can differ from one computed on all of them, which is why the denominator is published alongside the percentage every time.