A year ago Salt Lake was seeing appreciation rates in the 15-20% range. Today, appreciation is somewhere between 0 and +3% (My best guess - Official Data won't be out until the 20th).

There was a 6 month stretch with fewer home sales, making it harder to find comparable sales for new contracts and appraisals.

Many Buyers went into hiding while at the same time many owners decided to put their homes on the market. This is also true of Builders. Historically builders would list one or two homes with the intent of bringing buyers into their office. Then they would sell them something else. This was OK with most of us, because when we ran a home search, say for condos, we didn't like getting 130 IDENTICAL listings mixed in with the others. Well, once the market started slowing, many builders threw all their inventory onto the MLS, making it appear as though there was a ton of inventory being added to the marketplace, when in fact, they were always there. As you can see by the inventory graph to the right, this occurred between June and August of last year.

I would suggest that July was the last BIG month for home sales in the State. Since then, inventory has fluctuated up and down, but the level of available inventory appears to be approximately the same as we approach 1 year later.

I would suggest that our 1st quarter numbers (2008) will not look so good, but our 2nd quarter 2008 (Spring numbers) and 3rd quarter 2008 (Summer numbers) will probably surprise many people. Not that appreciation will be more than a few points in the positive, but the number of home sales will be more than expected because not only do we have those Buyers in the market who would normally buy at this time of year, but we also have all those who would have bought in 3rd and 4th quarter of 2007 who will be buying this Spring and Summer.

Realize that even though more contracts were probably written in March, compared with the previous 2 months, most of these contracts wouldn't close until April, which won't be included in the first quarter numbers...

If you are moving to the Salt Lake City area, make sure you get an Agent on YOUR side of the transaction!

If you have excellent credit and will be buying a $250,000-$750,000 home in the next 30-60 days and would like an agent who will work exclusively for you, call us at (801) 969-8989 or contact us via the link on this page.

©2008 Homebuyer Representation, Inc.  "The Real Estate Agents on the Buyer's Side" ™ Exclusive Buyers Agents (EBA) - All Rights Reserved

Exclusive Buyer Brokerages do not list homes and never represent Sellers.  Their agents represent Buyers ONLY on the Buyer's side of the transaction. They work to get BUYERS the Best Price and Terms when they Buy...

©2008 Homebuyer Representation, Inc. - Salt Lake City, UT

Exclusive Buyers Agents (EBA) - All Rights Reserved

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