July Sales Numbers for Salt Lake

Home sales were down by nearly 23% in Salt Lake County for July. Last year 1018 single family homes in Salt Lake County sold compared to just 789 this year. The average price of homes sold in July was also down by almost 6%. The average price of July homes sold was $291,634 compared to an average sold price of $309,722 last year.

Condo sales in Salt Lake County were down even more. 34% fewer Condominium units sold this year compared to last year when 264 condos sold. The average price of condos remained about the same with an average sold price of $190,682.

Salt Lake County Home Sales Officially Down

Salt Lake County Home Sales Graph

The Salt Lake Tribune reported today that home sales in Salt Lake County are officially down 28% for the second quarter and home prices are down 2%.

The funny thing about it is that the tax assesors are claiming that prices in Salt Lake County are actually up 3%. Apparently the government doesn’t have a problem raising home values so they can collect more property taxes. There is also an article in the Deseret news about this and they act as if prices are actually up because the tax assesors said so. With this much inventory on the market, median prices won’t really be rising any time soon.

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Salt Lake Q2/June Real Estate Sales

Is the market improving, or getting worse in Salt Lake? It’s still tough to tell from the data and statistics at this point, but June sales statistics do indicate that the Salt Lake real estate market is improving. One thing for certain is that it isn’t as good as it was last year, and it is healthier than Utah County Real Estate.

For the second quarter of 2008 home sales and prices were down compared to Q2 2007 for both houses and condos.

Home sales dropped by nearly 30%, and condo sales were down 34%. Unofficially 2535 single family homes were sold and 571 condos sold in Salt Lake County. The average sold price of homes during the second quarter was $293,395. Down approximately 2% from 2007’s average price of $299,233. Salt Lake County currently has 8450 home listings. At Q2’s sales pace this is 9.2 months of inventory.

June sales in Salt Lake were only down 12.2% compared to June of Last year for single family homes. June sales were also up 18% compared too may. This could be a sign that the Salt Lake Real Estate market is improving.

Home Sales Up in Salt Lake County

Up is a relative word though. I thought that an optimistice headline might be a nice change for all the negative housing press. May was the top month for home sales in Salt Lake County for 2008 thus far, but my unofficial home sales statistics show that it was still about 36% less than home sales in 2007 and 45% less than May home sales in ‘06.

The good news for Salt Lake County home sales stats is that May home prices remained stable. Infact, they actually rose about a percentage from an average 2007 price of $273,929 to $277,239.

Current inventory shows 6800 active single family MLS listings, and 1411 SLC Condos for sale. These numbers are substantially down from the number of active listings just three months ago. With Mays’ rate of home sales there is about 8 months of inventory on the market. These home sales figures include real estate in: Bluffdale Real Estate, Cottonwood Heights Real estate, Draper Real Estate, Herriman Real Estate, Holladay Real Estate, Kearns Real Estate, Magna Real Estate, Midvale Real Estate, Murray Real Estate, Riverton Real Estate, SLC Real Estate, Sandy Real Estate, South Jordan Real Estate, South Salt Lake Real Estate, Taylorsville Real Estate, West Jordan Real Estate, and West Valley City Real Estate.

Utah 10 Year Home Appreciation

 

What is a healthy appreciation rate for real estate? It has to be more than the rate of inflation because more real estate cannot be created. It becomes more and more scarce as the population grows, and the population of Utah is growing. To make math simple, I picked 5% as an easy to figure out appreciation rate and ran a few numbers comparing the actual real estate appreciation rate to the 5% amount for the past 10 years for the major Utah Counties.

If 5% appreciation is an accurate and healthy rate for real estate appreciation, then compared to the 1998 average home value, Salt Lake and Utah Counties are overvalued while Davis County is almost right on, and Cache and Weber County’s real estate is undervalued.

 

Quarter 1 Sales Graphs for Salt Lake in 2008

 The first quarter of 2008 is officially over. Although the official home sales stats aren’t in yet, here are some unofficial numbers that give us a little picture of the housing market in the Salt Lake Area.  Home sales are way down, listing prices are substantially more than sold prices, and high end homes are having trouble selling. It’s a great time to be a buyer in Salt Lake, and if you’re in the market for a high end home, make sure you offer low….really low because there are lots of expensive homes on the market, and they aren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

This graph shows the relationship of the average list price of the major Salt Lake County cities. In every city the average list price is substantially more Expensive.

The blue column of this graph shows the number of single family houses sold in the larger cities of Salt Lake County during the 1st quarter. The second column is the number of active listings as of March 3, 2008.  Most cities have more than three times the number of listed homes vs. sold homes in the first quarter. Seasonally, the first quarter is always the slowest quarter for home sales in Utah.

Here are the same statistics for the major smaller cities in Salt Lake County.

	Average Sold	Average Active		Number  Sold	Number Listings
Kearns	$         172,000	$     184,000	Kearns	43	78
Midvale	$         226,000	$     280,000	Midvale	26	104
Bluffdale	$         495,157	$     617,000	Bluffdale	9	126
Murray	$         256,000	$     355,000	Murray	41	142
Taylorsville	$         221,000	$     274,000	Taylorsville	75	149
Cottonwood Heights	$         378,000	$     544,000	Cottonwood Heights	33	169
Magna	$         180,000	$     196,000	Magna	59	172
Holladay	$         377,000	$     820,000	Holladay	26	180
	Average Sold	Average List Price		#of Houses Sold	#of House Listings
Riverton	$         317,000	$     426,000	Riverton	74	304
Herriman	$         328,000	$     460,000	Herriman	77	377
West Valley	$         196,000	$     234,000	West Valley	152	465
South Jordan	$         381,000	$     466,000	South Jordan	112	559
Draper	$         499,000	$     685,518	Draper	85	562
West Jordan	$         247,000	$     297,000	West Jordan	247	592
Sandy	$         331,268	$     535,000	Sandy	169	636
	Average Sold	Average Active		Number  Sold	Number Listings
	Average Q1 Sold	Average List Price
SLC Houses	$         286,000	$     418,000	SLC Houses	529	1506
SLC Condos	$         226,000	296000	SLC Condos	161	525
SL County	$         290,000	442000	Salt Lake County	1772	6222

Salt Lake Board of Realtors Claims that Home Sales in Utah are Up, Prices are Down

KSL is airing an optimistic outlook for Utah Housing. They are claiming that the Utah Housing slump may have reached a low and is already on the rebound. Ryan Kirkman, the Vice President of The Salt Lake Board of Realtors notes that home sales increased 19% in February compared to January MLS homes sold. He said,

That represents a huge change from the same time a year ago.Kirkham said, “I actually pulled up the numbers for 2007. The numbers went from, went up only 2 properties sold more in February ‘07 than January ‘07. So that’s really good. I think we’re encouraged by this.”"February’s double-digit rise in sales is welcome news and follows three consecutive months of month-to-month sales declines,” said Jillinda Bowers, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. “At $225,000, Salt Lake County’s median sales price for homes and condominiums is not over-inflated.” 

The more negative news, not reported, is that although home sales did increase in February compared to January, they are only a fraction of the 2007 numbers. In February of 2007, 1148 homes were sold in Salt Lake County. This year, just 737 homes wer sold and we had an extra day. In addition, home sales in February are nearly always higher. Home sales have been higher in February every year since the WFRMLS started keeping statistics in 1995, with the exception  of 2003. Part of it is a seasonal thing. Not as many people try to buy houses in December, and so January real estate sales are usually low. 

I also disagree with the statement by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors President that home prices are not over-inflated.  First off, although the median price of homes and condos sold was just $225,000, the median price of homes on the market is $336,000 for houses, and $215,000 for condos. This is very over-inflated. Obviously the low end homes are the ones that are selling. The thousands of high end vacant spec homes are not. The average price of Salt Lake County homes on the market is $446,000. Either these prices are over-inflated, or else there are just way too many big houses for sale.

 

  

Salt Lake County Home Sales down in February

The housing market in Salt Lake is not off to a good start in ‘08. According to my unofficial Salt Lake MLS statistics from the Wasatch Front Regional Multiple Listing Service, home sales were down 49%. And that includes an extra day this February thanks to leap year. This sales decline is 1% point worse than January’s Salt Lake sales stats with a  decline of 48%. This year there were only 591 Single family homes sold. Last year 1,148 houses were sold in Salt Lake County.

The average price of sold homes rose slightly over 2007’s numbers with an average sold price of $269,962. This is up about 1% over last years February sales numbers. Presently there are more than 7,000 active MLS listings on the market.   The median price of these listings is $309,000, while the average listed price is $415,000. There is ample inventory and it is a great time to buy as many home sellers are very motivated.

 

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