Update on Our Local Real Estate Market

I love when when KPCW’s Leslie Thatcher interviews Nancy Tallman, President of Park City Board of Realtors and Carol Agle, Chairperson of board’s statistic group. Last Friday’s interview didn’t disappoint. Here are some of the highlights provided by Ms Tallman and Ms Agle about the local real-estate market:

• Prices as a whole are stable. They said that they couldn’t remember a time when they took the sales added up for all homes in the Park City city limits and the average price went up $0.
• The average price in Park Meadows, which is the “bellwether” market in Park City, and the average price in Jeremy Ranch did not go up, either.
• When looking at the median price it went up because “everyone is buying from the lower end of the market.”
• Leslie Thatcher, given the fact that average prices did not go up, asked about the bright spots. The response from Ms Tallman and Ms Agle was that stability is actually a good thing.
• As being in town becomes more pricey, people are willing to live farther out and get houses with lower prices.
• They say that we’ve run up against the limits of what a primary home buyer can pay. Home buyers may have got a few raises recently but that their expenses have gone up too. So, there is a ceiling to what they can borrow.
• The median price in Old Town is $415,000. Median price means 50% of all sales happen below $415,000. They would like to know why some of this property can’t be used for affordable housing requirements instead of building on new land. Many of these are 2-4 bedroom condos.
• They said inventory was at historic lows. They then discussed why prices aren’t up, given typical supply versus demand principles. The response was that people are tapped out and that they may be looking at newer, more exciting areas.
• Inventory started declining in 2013 and hasn’t really recovered.
• Short sales and foreclosures are way down here and across the country.
• Now people are staying in homes 10 years, versus before the economic downturn where they were staying in a home 6 years.
• Ms Thatcher asked what properties are doing well and selling fast. The response was some homes around a million dollars in Prospector, Ranch place, and Silver Springs were often going fast.
• The median price of homes sold in the Park City city limits (basically to the white barn) was $1.3 million, which is the same as a few months ago. They are seeing a mental block with buyers going higher than $1.3.
• The median price of homes sold in the entire Snyderville Basin was $800,000.
• The number of sales is down 29%. They said this fits into the lack of inventory issue.
• They are seeing some people in Park Meadows who have “tear down houses” but then fix them up to try and sell them. They are not spending money wisely. They gave an example of 2 houses on American Settler that both sold for $1.5 million that will be torn down. Therefore, they recommend talking to a real-estate professional to make sure that buyer’s views of their property really reflect reality.

Note the full interview can be heard on KPCW’s website, where they post most Local News Hour Programs.