Todd Anderson

The Park City housing market has seen change recently. The rocketing upward of prices has slowed and Park City is returning to a more normal real estate market. The effect of the changing market varies greatly depending on the price, neighborhood and subdivision.

The entry level market appears to have been affected the least by the downward pricing pressure here in Park City, Utah. Finding a single family home in Park City that is under $400,000 is still very hard to do; the same goes for a truly affordable condominium. There are a number of factors keeping the entry level home pricing up while other Park City marketplaces flatten or fall.

The economy of Park City and most of Utah is still strong. Job losses and cutbacks have not been a problem here, and the resorts are still enjoying strong tourism. The fact that the job market hasn't changed much means that people living in Park City aren't falling behind on mortgage payments and aren't being forced to sell their homes.

The entry level tier of the housing market has the most resistance to falling prices. While no-one ever wants to take a loss on an investment, the people who scraped everything together to buy the home they live in truly can't afford and refuse to take a loss and start over. If these people aren't forced into selling their homes due to job-loss or some family tragedy, chances are they will just stay where they are until such time that the market changes or they have accumulated enough wealth to move upward within the area.

People still want to live in and raise their families in Park City. Demand for housing, especially entry level housing has not changed much. There is a very strong service industry in Park City and the wages that coincide with these jobs dictates that entry level housing in Park City is what these workers can afford. The recent changes affecting credit and financing have made it harder to get loans, but in truth these were not the people that needed sub-prime loans anyway.

Things do happen and people are forced into selling their homes at "rock bottom" prices at times in order to move them quickly, but there are few indicators that "the bottom is falling out" and that entry level pricing will fall dramatically in the near future. For more information regarding pricing in specific Park City real estate neighborhoods and/or subdivisions, visit http://www.youinparkcity.com/

Here is a great new way for potential Buyers of Park City area real estate to find out a bit more about the town and the neighborhoods. It is also a great new way for locals to obtain information about the goings in around the city. The Park City Police Department and Summit County Sheriff's Office have begun posting local crimes on a public web-site. The site is updated daily by 7 a.m. Simply go to http://www.crimereports.com/ and click on Utah then pick Park City from the drop down menu. A map will show up and be populated by the crimes that have been reported/acted on by the police for a given date range.

The vast majority of the crimes being posted are consistent with typical resort town problems. The site maps parking problems (a big issue this year due to all the snow we've had), traffic stops, noise complaints, assaults and property crimes. The site offers email alerts, and the ability to look up crime reports by the type of offense. It also gives addresses and information regarding registered sex offenders.

The website should become a great asset for locals and second home owners alike when determining what precautions if any may be prudent while living or vacationing in Park City. It will also give second home owners the ability to look at their neighborhood and see what has been happening while they aren't here.

All in all, I believe that in looking at the crime maps for Park City, people will be better able to appreciate the local police as well as feel safer in general about living in Park City and owning property here.

The Realtors at http://www.youinparkcity.com/ are familiar with the neighborhoods in town and can assist in pointing out areas that may be a problem (our Resort town contains few if any of these) and the new crime maps will provide additional data.

The website contains data for many other cities. A comparison to a major city puts a lot into perspective (take a look at San Diego for instance). When filing through the crimes there and comparing them to Park City, one can get a better sense of the relative safety of our Resort town.

Buyers and Sellers Agency are possibly the most misunderstood portions of Utah real estate law. This may be more true in Park City real estate transactions than other portions of Utah as many of the buyers are second home buyers and their knowledge is based on another state's law. Agency is something that at first glance seems quite straightforward; that is, until the idea of dual or limited agency is introduced.

Agency is defined as: The relationship created when one person, the principal, delegates to another, the agent, the right to act on his or her behalf in business transactions and to exercise some degree of discretion while so acting. An agency gives rise to a fiduciary relationship and imposes on the agent, as the fiduciary of the principal, certain duties, obligations, and high standards of good faith and loyalty. To understand this we need to further define Fiduciary as: The relationship of trust, honesty and confidence between agent and principal; the faithful relationship owed by an agent to the principal.

In a straightforward real estate sale or purchase, there is an agent working for the Buyer and one working for the Seller. Things change though when the Buyer is not represented or is represented by the Seller's agent (Limited or Dual Agency in Utah). Utah law allows for these types of transactions to exist and many agents actually try to involve themselves in them. Why? Money of course!

Sellers, when agreeing to allow and agent to represent them in marketing and selling their home, agree to pay the agent a commission regardless of who sells the home. The agreement allows the agent to offer a commission to a Buyers agent for bringing a Buyer and taking care of the Buyers side of the sale. If the Seller's agent can find a Buyer, the agent doesn't have to share with a Buyers' Agent. The agent doubles up their commission.

The issue that presents itself here is: how can an agent act as a fiduciary in when their responsibility is to two different people with somewhat opposing interests. The Seller wants the most money for their home and the Buyer wants the home for the best price available. How can the agent work to get the most money for the Seller and the best deal for the Buyer at the same time? They can't. In fact all parties involved have to sign an agreement allowing for Limited or Dual Agency. The form effectively states that the Agent involved now works for no-one and is merely an intermediary making sure that all paperwork is understood by all parties and completed correctly. And for acting in neither party's best interest, the agent gets "both sides" of the commission the Seller agreed to pay.

Unfortunately, this situation presents itself due to an innocent mistake made by the Buyer thinking that they will get a better deal by dealing with the Seller's agent rather than getting their own. We at the YouInParkCity.com group attempt to not involve ourselves in the practice of "Dual" or "Limited Agency". We encourage all of our Park City real estate clients to be represented by a Realtor that is working solely in their best interest. Feel free to contact us by phone (888) 968-4672 or email so that we can start working for you!

Oversupply of housing coupled with a strong economic outlook for Utah catches the eye of people looking for a deal or strong investment. The Daily Real Estate News posted this today:

February 11, 2008

10 Best Places for House Bargains

The best place to get a bargain on a home is an area where there is healthy job growth and more houses available than people to buy them.

These are markets "where you have high inventories but pliable borrowers, with lenders willing to deal," says Anthony Sanders, a professor of finance at Arizona State University.

Forbes magazine went looking for markets where the damage from risky lending hasn't been as dramatic as in some parts of the country and where employment growth will burn off an over-abundance of inventory quickly.

Here are what the magazine considers the 10 best cities for bargain house hunters.

1. Salt Lake City, Utah. Developers have gotten ahead of the demand, but the city is adding jobs more quickly than practically any place else in the country.

Source: Forbes, Matt Woolsey (02/07/08)

What does this mean for Park City, Utah? While Salt Lake and Park Cities are less than 30 miles from each other, their market-places are surprisingly different, as are their climate, traffic and residents' lifestyles. Park City being what it is, a resort town with many non-resident owners, has for many years been a market very different from Salt Lake City. Park City is very limited in its possible expansion areas due to its geography. There are only so many places that have easy ski and recreation access. The ability to not have to drive to go somewhere in town is a great feature of Park City and a feature that is limited to its city boundaries. Residents living in Park City enjoy not being park of a big city and enjoy the feel of mountain resort living. Scarcity is something that has and continues to drive prices and demand in Park City.

The proximity of the two towns is very close, but pricing, demand, scarcity and the reasons to live in the cities are different between Salt Lake City and Park City. While there are some bargains currently in the Park City area and Salt Lake has been named one of the best markets in the country for bargains, it is more due to coincidence than the two cities being tied to each other. Search http://www.youinparkcity.com/ to find Park City property.

Park City Year End Stats

The Park City real estate market is compiling its year end data. Spin is surely soon to follow.

The two graphs here can tell different stories. There are more available Park City real estate listings on the market currently, and this number has been on the rise. During this same time-frame, pended sales numbers have been decreasing. First glance may indicate that there are more people trying to sell and fewer buyers. A second look may also show that properties that were sold to speculators are being completed, sold and put back on the market (no longer pending and becoming active listings).

The two graphs above tell a much different story when viewed together than they do apart. Park City total sales volume when viewed as a year-to-year comparison shows a very good year, with 2007 being not far from its peak in 2005. This graph or statistic is the one that people seem to cite the most when asked about the state of the Park City real estate market.

The graph on the right shows that the number of transactions for 2007 was down dramatically from its peak in 2005.

The two graphs together indicate that the average price of a sale in Park City has gone up while the number of sales has gone down.

The past year has seen the completion of many homes in the Empire Pass area of Deer Valley as well as many new high-end homes in the Promontory and Tuhaye golf communities. Many of these were speculative "flips" in the Empire Pass area and speculative builds in the others. All of these new available properties have been built for the luxury buyer and contribute to all of the different data shown here.

Another angle that has to be considered when looking at this data is location and scarcity. The boundaries of Park City, its ski resorts, its golf courses, its lack of available land for building, and peoples' desire to live and own homes here contribute greatly to Park City's property values.

It is very hard to consider any one piece of land, condominium, or home in Park City without considering nearby alternatives. This means that much of the data needs to be cropped down to much smaller sample sizes for true comparative analysis.

Interpreting data can lead to many different opinions about the state of real estate in Park City and a valid argument can be made for all of them. The http://www.youinparkcity.com/ group loves to discuss these numbers and help you to make sense of how they affect your Park City real estate buying or selling decisions.

Contact us for more information. http://www.YouInParkCity.com/contact.php