Utah residents can read in the news daily of the doom and gloom real estate market around the nation. But wait, don't freak out! Our market is still doing just fine! While national real estate news is important, I must stress the importance of paying close attention to local real estate news. The Salt Lake City market experienced a 12.3% increase in the last 12 months. Our job market is strong, and people are still moving here from out of state.
I'm not advocating the denial of a nationwide real estate slump, like many are doing now, I'm simply saying that we shouldn't let the news media crush our confidence in our market. There are even many other cities in the nation that have experienced growth as good as or better than ours in the past 12 months.
Some people that I talk to have developed this fear of the market now, that they've completely changed their home selling or buying plans. Yes it's true that if you are going to sell your house in today's market, you must explore different approaches to be competitive, but you can still sell! And by all means you can still buy!
So let's not let the media (who will report any and every doom and gloom story that they can dig up)change how we do things. Let's just be smarter about the realities of our market.