About Utah County, UT

June 2008 Market Conditions

What are the current conditions?

We are now into the first quarter and the market in Utah is remaining stronger than the Nation Real Estate Market. This will continue throughout 2008 and into 2009.

As we finish the second quarter let's look at the numbers for Utah County by comparing 2007 with 2008.

We have seen the following:

Days on the market increase from 52 to 72.

Sold's have reduced from 1228 to 722

New Listings have increase from 3621 to 3946

New Asking Price is FLAT

Sales Price is down 4%

What does the coming year have in store?

1-Strong employment-Utah has low unemployment rate

2-Quality of Life-Utah is highly rated place to live

3-Strong commercial construction.

4-Home prices will stabilization while residential homes sales strengthen throughout 2008 compared to 2007 Q3 and Q4.

The past year has not made a lot of sense when you compare Utah with the National market. What are some of the possible reasons for the softer sales and FLAT?

1-FEAR, FEAR, AND MORE FEAR. Buyers have believed the negative national news and are making it come true for our local market.

2-Sub prime mortgage turmoil. Resulting in shrinking of the pool of buyers.

3-Negative National Real Estate news. That normally does not apply. We normally run opposite of the national markets. Especially the California market.

4-Speculators inflating our housing market, making homes unaffordable for many buyers. In the past years, now speculation history and investors are remaining. Investors provide a necessary resource of rental homes. Especially in this tight money market where many simply cannot qualify to purchase in today's market.

We have been through a price correction in Q3, Q4 2007 and Q1 2008. Q2 2008 will continue to be flat with possibly more (much smaller) price correction.

However, I would not suggest you bet on it. Our market has great value now. Buyers if you're sitting on the sideline waiting for better prices. I believe your making a big mistake.

For specific market area details please visit www.MarkWatterson.com or call me 801.815.0411

Mark Watterson is a Principle Broker with Principle Realty Group, Inc and a licensed Senior Mortgage Loan Specialist with Envision Lending Group.

We recently purchased our first home in Utah County with the assistance of Benjamin Clark. We had been researching homes and the home-buying process for about a year before we decided the time was right. After reading a lot about the process, it became clear to us that we wanted someone representing our interests exclusively. Retaining an exclusive buyer’s agent was the only way to do that.

We discovered that Benjamin Clark was the only exclusive buyer’s agent in the area. Initially, we had a few concerns. We were a little concerned that we only had one choice and that Benjamin was based out of Salt Lake County, not Utah County. As we began to work with Benjamin, however, those concerns quickly dissipated. It became exceedingly clear that he knew what he was doing and was willing to work as hard as needed to meet our needs, despite the long drive. We also had some concerns about the seeming conflict in interest with all agents: the agent gets paid more as the purchase price increases. Benjamin made it clear with both his words and his actions that making the experience as satisfying as possible for us, the buyers, was way more important and valuable to him than the extra couple hundred dollars in commission that might come from a higher purchase price. At the beginning of the process, we gave him a range in prices that we were comfortable with. We never felt any direct or indirect pressure to go with the more expensive homes in our price range. On the contrary, Benjamin seemed very interested in seeing if we could find a home near the bottom of our price range. In the end, we found a home initially listed at the middle of our price range and ended up buying it for a price close to the bottom of our range ($15,000 less than the initial listing price).

As a first time home buyer, Benjamin was very helpful at every step of the process. If we ever had a question or a concern about anything, he was very quick to return our phone calls. Furthermore, he was very easy to get along with and made the process comfortable and enjoyable.

The most important fact is that we have now been in our home for about a month and a half and still love it. We would recommend Benjamin Clark to anyone that asks.

Blake and Meagan

If you are planning to buy a home in the Utah County 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

Finally...

With all the news going on about real estate lately, I have been asked, multiple times, if I am concerned about my real estate investments. My answer is always no. Utah is a great place to invest in real estate. Currently Utah is the envy of the rest of the country. The former Director of The Division of Real Estate for the State of Utah published a great article that gives a lot of valuable information to those of us that love and invest in real estate.

Reading or watching the news is rarely what one would call a positive or uplifting experience. Re­cent headlines are no exception. In fact, you might think the world is falling apart if you focused on the terms used to describe the real estate industry and housing market - words like crisis, deteriorating and collapse. While it is certainly true that many parts of the country are experiencing serious and in some cases even severe market adjustments, those doom and gloom headlines don't necessarily apply to our state.

So, while you may have read in recent news articles that "foreclosures are skyrocketing" you might be interest­ed to learn the fact that in Utah the number of foreclo­sures actually decreased. Yes, DECREASED. Maybe it doesn't make for the kind of eye-catching headlines that reporters are looking for, but it is a fact nevertheless.

Here are some more facts you may be interested to learn (and may even surprise you when contrasted to recent headlines). According to economic data re­cently released for 2007, Utah experienced population growth of 3.2%, which equates to over 85,000 new in­dividuals in our state. A telling sign for our economy is that over half of that 85,000 moved to Utah from out-of-state (anyone know of a good agent that could help find these people a home, or an appraiser, or mortgage broker?). The high number of move-ins is no wonder given that our state added almost 50,000 new jobs last year. Even though our economy has slowed somewhat recently, job growth for the end of December was still a healthy 3.6% (which is four times the national aver­age). Pay growth in Utah for 2007 surpassed the na­tional average at 5.5% and we had an extremely low unemployment rate of 2.7%. Given these numbers it is no surprise that Utah continually receives awards and accolades for our strong economy, including re­cently being named by the Beacon Hill Institute as "the most economically competitive state in the nation."

Besides the strong overall economic numbers, our state continues to post solid real estate numbers. Foreclosures are down and a recent quarterly re­port from the Mortgage Bankers Association showed Utah with the lowest foreclosure rate in the country for subprime ARMs. Like all things in the free mar­ket, real estate and housing rely on a healthy bal­ance of supply and demand. With some of the lowest rates in recent history and real estate on the market, supply is not a problem. Based on economic esti­mates that Utah will add another 85,000 people to our state this year, we can expect continued demand.

That said, it would be ridiculous to ignore the fact that real estate markets have tightened somewhat, even here in Utah. However, the economic indicators in Utah remain strong and the best way to overcome some of the ‘psychological' factors contributing to the slowdown of sales in Utah is to continue to grow our economy, so that people feel assured that this is still a great time to buy a home and invest in real estate.

It's a great time to invest in real estate. Contact my office about all your Property Management, Real Estate and Mortgage needs. I'd be happy to discuss any questions you may have or strategies you may be thinking of to get started in real estate or to improve and grow your current portfolio.

Sources: "Utah Division of Real Estate News" March 2008.

Here are the non-official Utah County Home Sales Statistics for 2007 as compared with 2006 numbers.

Single Family Home Sales: Down 25.5%
Condominium Sales Down: Down 6.3%
Average Sold Price: Up 9.6%

2007 Statistics
Number of Single Family Homes Sold: 4,475
Number of Condos Sold: 1,292
Average Single Family Home Price: $289,311
Median Single Family Home Price: $240,000
Average Sold Condo Price: $172,248
Average Days on Market: 51

2006 Statistics
Number of Single Family Homes Sold: 6,013
Number of Condos Sold: 1,408
Average Single Family Home Price: $261,396
Average Sold Condo Price: $152,245
Average Days on Market: 50

The Utah Valley Trend is very consistent with the real estate market throughout Utah. The number of Home sales is substantially down, but home prices continue to climb in Utah county. As of January 3rd there were 3,505 single family homes listed on the MLS in Utah County. At the 2007 pace of homes sold, if no additional properties were listed it would take nine months to liquidate all Utah County houses for sale. There is way too much inventory to support continued price appreciation.

The average price of houses for sale in Utah County right now is $415,664, more than $125,000 more than the '07 average sales price. The median price of $320,000 is also statistically too high at exactly $80,000 more than the average median sold price of 2007. Homes on the market right now have already been on for an average of 90 days. The price of these homes will have to come down if they want to sell. They've just gone up too quickly, and there have been too many high end spec homes built.

Unless a miracle happens and the average Utah County resident gets a 30% pay raise, I'd expect home prices to drop and foreclosures to increase as 2008 rolls on. With that said, It is a good time to buy a house. Interest rates are much lower than anticipated, and there is lots of selection to choose from. Lower end homes will likely still increase in value.

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