Salt Lake City Real Estate Blog |
Salt Lake City Real Estate & Homes |
About 76% of home owners believe their home is worth more than their real estate agents recommended listing price according to the National Association of Realtors.
That is why many Salt Lake City homes that are listed with individual sellers do not sell right away and require price reductions to sell them. This is especially true when prices are falling.
Kevin Coyle Realtor MBA Principal Broker SLC Homes M: (801) 243-0699 E: Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com “Specializing in Buyer Representation in SLC”During the last week I know of 4 people who had their water heaters fail and 2 years ago right now, my water heater failed. I did a little research and found that water heaters are more likely to fail during the winter months due to the fact that they have to work harder to warm up the colder water.
If you are going on vacation during the winter, or any time, and you have an old water heater, it would be a good idea to turn the water off while you are away. I did 2 years ago and only 40 gallons of water leaked out and most of it went down the floor drain so I had very little water damage.
It is also a good idea to shut the water off to the washing machine and as the hoses on the washing maching get older, replace them.
Some people I know shut off the water to the entire house when they go away on vacation.
Basement floods can be very expensive. Put this on your vacation check list!
Kevin Coyle
SLC Homes
M: (801) 243-0699
When there are fewer home buyers, there are more renters. When the demand for rental units increases, so does the cost to rent. With increasing rents, decreasing home prices and low interest rates come cash flowing properties for rental property investors.
This year I have seen many entry level single family homes in Salt Lake City and the surrounding suburbs, that will cash flow with 20% down. It’s the first time I’ve seen this scenario in a very long time and it’s due to higher rents, lower home prices and low interest rates.
As this trend continues I”d expect that this will contribute toward an increased demand for Salt Lake City homes.
Kevin Coyle
SLC Homes
M: (801) 243-0699
Fewer home buyers = more renters. When the demand for rental units increases, so does the cost of rent. Right now in Salt Lake City, rents are going up, home prices are falling and interest rates are at all time lows.
At some point it makes sense for a renter to become a home owner because the amount of rent per month vs. the cost of home ownership makes it worth while to buy.
I have a friend who told me that she paints every rental she moves into to make it how she wants it. Her landlord is saying, “thank you for the free labor”!
The Salt Lake City real estate market has been declining for over 4 years. As renters get tired of increasing rents, more and more of them will become home owners.
Kevin Coyle
SLC Homes
M: (801) 243-0699
The question I ask in the title “When will prices of Salt Lake City homes rise again?” is a question I am constantly asked and not an easy one to answer.
Right now interest rates are at all time lows and they have been for the last couple years. Yet the demand for housing remains low in most areas, supply is high and prices have been falling for over 4 years in the Salt Lake City real estate market.
Salt Lake City real estate values are affected by many factors. Some of the obvious factors are supply, demand, interest rates and unemployment.
Right now supply is high due to the bad economy which has created high mortgage default rates causing housing inventory to rise and prices to fall leaving many home owners upside down on their homes, owing more than its worth. The upper end has been hurt even more due to the unwillingness and inability for many home owners to move up.
Over the last couple years, the U.S. government has had to buy mortgage backed securities, big packages of home loans, in order to keep this train rolling due to lack of interest from outside buyers such as China. As a result, it has become more difficult for buyers to qualify for a mortgage.
If you think about it, it makes sense. If interest rates are at all time lows, and there aren’t many buyers for mortgage backed securities, those who have the money will play it safe, especially when they are using the U.S. tax payer dollars and running up a huge national debt in order to make it happen.
As a result, the number of home buyers has decrease due to tighter restrictions on loans, higher credit requirements to qualify and lack of alternative/creative financing such as zero down and stated income loans.
So my answer to the question, “When will prices of Salt Lake City homes rise again?”, is when housing inventory drops and when federal policy and banks, mortgage brokers and credit unions start to make it easier to qualify for a home loan and offer alternative financing.
Kevin Coyle
SLC Homes
M: (801) 243-0699
I was recently interviewed by a reporter from the Inman News about the Salt Lake City real estate market. Today she sent me an email of the article she wrote which puts Salt Lake City as 1 of the 10 best markets for Real Estate investors in the nation. Of the 10 cities on the list, there are only 2 cities west of the Mississippi River and they are Tuscon, Arizona and Salt Lake City, Utah!
http://www.inman.com/news/2011/06/3/10-best-markets-real-estate-investors
Kevin Coyle REALTOR Principal Broker MBA SLC Homes Cel: 801-243-0699 Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com Providing Buyer Representation for real estate buyers throughout Salt Lake
Last week I said that more than half of the offers I write or receive on Salt Lake City homes are multiple offers situations since President’s day 2011. The multiple offers are coming in on homes that are the best values on the market.
Short sales frequently attract mulitple offers, but it’s not the same. Buyer’s typically wait and wait and wait for these homes and most of the time, get tired of waiting, lose to someone else or the home goes into foreclosure before the short sale is complete.
The mulitple offer homes I’ve seen have not been short sales. They have been either foreclosed homes priced below market value or regular sales (non-distressed homes) that are a good value or one of a kind.
Then there are the rest of the Salt Lake City homes for sale that are over priced and sitting on the market getting no offers at all. That’s the majority of Salt Lake homes right now.
Salt Lake City Homes that are priced right and show well will usually be the first to sell and some of those homes are attracting mulitple offers right now.
Kevin Coyle REALTOR Principal Broker MBA SLC Homes Cel: (801) 243-0699 Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com “Specializing in SLC Home Buyer representation”I haven’t been blogging much lately because I’ve been selling a lot of homes. Today I have a personal statistic for you.
I’m representing a few sellers and a lot of buyers right now and since President’s Day weekend 2011, more than half of the offers I’ve written for clients or received for sellers have ended up in a multiple offer situation.
I’m guessing we are experiencing pent up demand.
The federal tax credit for home buyers ended June 30, 2010. After that there was a lag in demand for Salt Lake homes, then winter came, still slow, now possibly we are experiencing pent up demand. We’ll see.
Thank you to everyone who has been keeping me busy selling Salt Lake City real estate!!!
Kevin Coyle REALTOR Principal Broker MBA SLC Homes (801) 243-0699 Mobile Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.comIn 2010 Utah made high honors on many national rankings:
Wow! Utah and Salt Lake City in a postive economic light!
The Salt Lake County real estate market has been declining for over 3 1/2 years and at some point prices will stop dropping and the market will flatten out, but it’s highly doubtful that this will happen in all areas at once. Some price ranges and areas will recover before others due to inventory levels and demand for housing.
I expect the first time buyer to lead the recovery. It’s not rocket science, just simple supply and demand economics. Without first time home buyers, those sellers can’t move up, and so on, and so on.
The areas that will recover first will most likely be those where you can’t build a house without tearing one down, have the highest appeal and are within the price range of many first time home buyers. Established Salt Lake City neighborhoods will most likely leed the recovery.
Interest rates are still very low and have been hovering around 4 3/4% for a 30 year mortgage. It’s a good time to be a Salt Lake City home buyer!
Kevin Coyle REALTOR Principal Broker MBA SLC Homes 801-243-0699 (Phone) Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com
If a home buyer uses a FHA loan for their purchase of a home, all or part of the down payment can be a gift from a family member. FHA loans currently require just 3.5% down too.
Kevin Coyle MBA, Associate Broker Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com 801-243-0699 (Mobile) SLCHomes Real Estate
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had a couple clients ask me what their home was worth. In both cases I came up with a value for their home based on the most recent sales of homes nearest and most similar to their home.
One home is in West Jordan and I determined that it was worth about $195,000. They checked on Zillow.com and Zillow said it was worth about $220,000. The home is worth $195,000.
The second home is in Holladay and the owner was concerned because Zillow said their home was worth $275,000. I did an analysis of their home and it is worth about $360,000.
Utah is a non-disclosure state meaning that the sale price of homes are not public record. As a result Zillow isn’t very accurate in determining your home’s value in Utah. Zillow is a great resource, just not for determining the value of Salt Lake City and Utah homes.
An experienced Salt Lake City Realtor can determine your home’s value, the level of inventory in your area and advise you on what to do to help get your home sold.
Kevin Coyle MBA, Associate Broker Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com 801-243-0699 (Cel) SLCHomes Real EstateThere are some key items to consider when attempting to put a value on a home including square feet, condition and improvements, age, lot size and location. Values of homes vary greatly from Salt Lake City to Sandy and from Mill Creek to West Valley City and everywhere in between.
When I became a Salt Lake City Realtor in 1999, I thought I understood this, but I soon realized that values can vary not only from city to city, but from neighborhood to neighborhood. The best example I can think of is the neighborhoods of Salt Lake City, but the same can be true in any area.
All of the various neighborhoods have values of their own and they can change in just a block or two. The value in Liberty Wells is different from 9th and 9th. Lower Sugar House is different from 15th and 15th. 15th and 15th is not the same as Harvard Yale. In Rose Park values increase as you go North. Upper Aves is not the same as Lower Aves or Federal Heights. Condo communities across the street from one another can be different. You get the idea.
When buyers go it alone without a Realtor, it’s risky business and this is one of the many reasons why. You might think you know the value of that home, but do you really? If you were off by just 3% on a $250,000 house, that’s $7,500. Also, if the price was to high, the appraisal might fail during your attempt to buy that Salt Lake City home and then the transaction becomes really tricky.
There’s more to buying Salt Lake City homes than most people think. Hiring an experienced Salt Lake City Realtor to help you with your home search and all the details, can make your home buying experience much more enjoyable and smooth.
Hire and experienced Salt Lake City Realtor, it’s worth it!
Kevin Coyle Assocaite Broker, MBA Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com 801-243-0699 (Cel) SLCHomes Real EstateI just read two articles about Salt Lake City as a place to live and Salt Lake City foreclosed homes.
According to the Salt Lake Tribune and Realty Trac, the number of home foreclosures in Salt Lake City is at it’s highest levels since the beginning of our downward trending real estate market. Sounds like doom and gloom, but not if you’re renting and thinking about buying.
The second article came from Portfolio.com which ranked Salt Lake City #5 out of 67 cities for quality of life. Two key factors they used to determine this ranking were that “No market has a lower jobless rate for workers between the ages of 25 and 64 than Salt Lake City and only Washington has a larger share of homes with at least nine rooms. One-fifth of Salt Lake City’s houses are that size.”
Our unemployment is low, you get a lot of home for the money and our foreclosures are at an all time high. Our quality of life is great here, I wouldn’t live anywhere else! And again, as I mentioned last week, interest rates are very low.
It’s a great time to buy Salt Lake City homes and condos! Representing SLC Home Buyers is what I do best. Let me know if I can help you.
Sincerely,
Kevin Coyle MBA, Associate Broker Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com 801-243-0699 (Cel) SLCHomes Real EstateA client of mine locked her interest rate last Friday at 4.625% for a 30 year fixed rate conventional mortgage! That’s an amazing interest rate! If you’ve been waiting to lock your loan or are thinking about refinancing, you and your lender should be watching interest rates very closely right now.
At the end of March 2010, the Federal Reserve ended their policy of buying mortgage backed securities to keep mortgage rates low. I blogged about this on March 29, 2010. So far, this change in policy doesn’t appear to have affected interest rates. Rates are still in the low 5% range for a 30 year fixed rate mortgage which is about where they were in March.
If interest rates start to climb, that would decrease the buying power for buyers of Salt Lake City homes and condos. Let’s hope these low rates continue!
Kevin Coyle Associate Broker, GRI, MBA Kevin@SLCHomeBuyer.com 801-243-0699 (Mobile) SLCHomes Real Estate