It seems to be a tale of two housing industry stories for Utah. Let’s start with the good news.
Home sales are up in the state, and that’s great news. In Salt Lake City, home sales are up 8%, and in Tooele County sales are up more than 18%. Homes sales went up, even though the federal tax credit went away. Condominium sales are also up more than 11%. However, there seem to be contributing factors to why home sales are up, and that doesn’t bode as well for how things are.
The first reason home sales might be up is because mortgage interest rates are so low. Of course, interest rates on their own don’t do all that much.
This leads to the second reason; home prices have fallen to around $206,000 from $222,000 last year across the state, but in some areas home prices have dropped as much as 8% from last year at the same time period. The reason for this continues to be the high rate of foreclosures and short sales, which has created a real buyers market as some homeowners are able to transfer homes that are still in very good condition to buyers that don’t have to wonder what might have happened to a foreclosed home.
Reason three has nothing to do directly with the housing market, that being unemployment has decreased, which means there’s more money to be spent on homes. These things, along with special state programs like “Own In Murray” definitely make this a good time to look at new or existing home purchases.
See also:
Mitch writes on real estate, finance, and many other things. 
No Comments