It’s probably no surprise that 2018 was a good year for the Salt Lake County real estate market, but behind the record highs there are signs of a slowing market, especially for high-end homes.
Single-Family Homes
The median sales price for a single-family home in Salt Lake County set a new high of $355,000 in 2018, that’s an increase of just under 10% over 2017 sales prices. This impressive performance was mainly fueled by a strong start to the year, where a lack of homes for sale inventory helped fuel price rises. The underlying slowdown is reflected by the fact that the number of homes sold declined in the year, with 2.19% fewer sales than in 2017.
Every zip code in Salt Lake County saw its median sales price increase in 2018. Two of the best performing areas are also two of Salt Lake Counties most expensive neighborhoods, the Salt Lake Avenues area, and Holladay.
Best Performing Single-Family Home Zip Codes
84117 Holladay Up 22.22% to $550,000
84103 Salt Lake Avenues Up 16.97% to $577,500
84115 South Salt Lake Up 13.69% to $289,900
Condos
The Salt Lake Condo real estate market also performed well in 2018, with most areas returning sales price increases (5 zip codes saw sales prices decline).
The sales price for condos increased by 11.59%, with a 2018 median sales price of $210,000. This was on the back of strong condo sales which went up 5.42%. You can see from these figures that the condo market actually performed better than the single-family home market.
There were some wild swings in sales prices throughout the county, Holladay, Taylorsville, and Sandy seeing growth between 43% and 68%. These seemingly high numbers must be taken with a pinch of salt because they are in areas which see very few condo sales.
Best Performing Condo Zip Codes
84129 Taylorsville Up 68.26% to $193,500
84124 Holladay Up 66.32% to $276,000
84092 Sandy Up 43.30% to $695,000
Summary
While the headline real estate figures for 2018 were very good, looking behind the scenes we can see that most of the growth occurred in the first part of the year. In fact, for single –family homes the last 3 quarters were pretty much flat.
This apparent slowing of the market was probably down to home affordability. The combination of rising interest rates and increasing home prices have put the squeeze of homebuyers, especially first-time home buyers where the market remains very competitive.
- While it is currently unclear where the market is going next, some signs of a slowing market to watch for are:
An increase in the number of price reductions taken on listings - The appearance of new construction spec homes listed for sale. A spec home is a new construction home that has been built without a buyer’s contract being in place.
See a full breakdown of the Salt Lake Housing Market performance by zip code.