- Image via Wikipedia
What happened to real estate sales for November 2008 in Salt Lake County?
According to the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, the number of homes and condominiums (units) sold in November 2008 was 576 units. In November of 2007 there were 924 units sold, that’s a decrease of 38%. Another statistic to note was that median price INCREASED by 4% to $229,900 from $221,300 in ‘07.
How can home prices be going up when all the indicators, and may cities home values, are going down? Well, most of the homes sold, 75%, were under the $300,000 price point, only 10% of the homes sold were above $500,000. The big difference between this year and last year is that interest rates last year were a full 1% higher. Usually when interest rate go down, people can afford more, so they usually purchase a more expensive house. Plus when interest rates are lower more people can afford to buy, so you see more entry level buyers come into the market, thus the large margin of home buyer’s in the entry level price range. When interest rates rise, people can afford less, and there are less buyer’s in the buyer pool, so more inventory means prices tend to go down.
It also might mean that prices in Salt Lake County have stabilized and may start to rise. It also might be temporary, prices should stabilize, then rise for a period of 4 to 6 months before we can claim victory over declining home prices. See my post on when it is a good time to buy to learn more about if you should wait.
What are your thoughts?
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Very nice post, maybe by combining yours and my ideas I will manage to start some serious work on my first blog.