Is Now a Good Time to Buy in Our Market?

Wasatch Front Real Estate Podcast with Spencer Janke

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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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!