Working With Ben to Find Him a New Home

Ben - Home Buyer "He was very good at catering to my work schedule. I told him after 4:30pm or 5pm I could be very flexible and either him or his assistant or partner would show us a house. Or do whatever was needed to be done to get through the process as easy and simple as possible. Communication was very good."

Is Now a Good Time to Buy in Our Market?

In Salt Lake City, sales are increasing and homes are getting more expensive. Does this mean you should buy now or wait?

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Buying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS access

Is now a good time to buy a home in Salt Lake City? As 2016 comes to an end, I thought I’d share with you a few stats from the residential real estate market to help answer that question.

It’s certainly been a crazy year. We’ve continued a four-year trend of rapid appreciation, and 2016 didn’t disappoint. In Salt Lake County, the market bottomed out in 2012 as far as median price goes, but since then we’ve seen a 38% appreciation. In fact, the NAR predicted that our county’s median price would grow 4.2% this year. They were wrong—we nearly doubled that. The final numbers through December haven’t been released, but it looks like the median price will see a rise of about 8%.

According to Zumper, Salt Lake City was the 53rd fastest growing market for rental prices, which puts us in the middle of the pack. We saw a 2-bedroom apartment, on average, increase in rental price by 12%. Around the nation, rental rates are slowing down as far as price appreciation goes, but they’re getting more expensive in Salt Lake City.

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Buying now will get you the cheapest possible price.

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As we’ve been saying for a while now, interest rates are going to go up. In fact, they’ve already gone up. Earlier this year, the national average rate for a 30-year fixed loan was around 3.5%. For most of our clients closing now, that rate is closer to 4%.

Sales were strong heading into the year, and they’re still increasing. In October, for example, there were 1,077 single-family home sales, which was a 2.6% increase over October 2015. In October 2016, the median price was $298,000, which is up 10.4% over October 2015.

So, should you buy now? If you care about money, then yes. Homes are getting more and more expensive. I do expect to see a softening in the next two to three years, but we won’t see an extreme downturn by any means. If you factor price appreciation coupled with interest rates, especially if you’re renting, waiting for that possible softening is not worth your time. 

If you have any questions about our market or you’re thinking of buying or selling, feel free to reach out to me. I’d be glad to help!

How We Helped Jenny With Her First Home Purchase

Jenny - Home Buyer "It was excellent. I just appreciate that he was very available to us, extremely responsive, he welcomed us to call or text anytime of day. Whatever questions we had, he was always very quick to let us know his answer. Or he would let us know when he could get us the answer. He usually would have it in 24 hours. That kind of thing is very important to us, and he was just important through the whole process. It was our first time buying a home and he was patient."

How Is 830 E Wilmington Ave Coming Along?

We're getting close to finishing our remodel project on 830 E Wilmington Ave and I'm excited to give you an update on our progress.

Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value report

Buying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS access

I wanted to drop by today with an update on our big remodel project over on 830 E Wilmington Ave, It's a great project that you may have already seen a few videos about.

This amazing 3,600 square foot home will actually be available for sale soon. It's a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home that we've remodeled completely.

The process is interesting because most people view these types of project as if they're an episode of Flip or Flop on HGTV. Today, we wanted to give you a real view of what it looks like.

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You won't see this footage on HGTV!

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The cabinets will go in this week and the countertops will go in next week, We should be up on the market within the next two weeks! The goal was to get this project done in 90 days, and we're already about 120 days in.

Check out the video above to see the progress of this awesome project. If you're interested in this home or you're thinking about buying or selling a home in Utah, give me a call or send me an email. I'd love to hear from you!