2020 Real Estate Market Update: Salt Lake City, UT

shutterstock 1615080301

Salt Lake City is the most populous municipality city in Utah. It was ranked 24th on U.S News & World Report’s 2019 list of best places to live in America. Through our research findings, we have concluded that home values have been on the rise for the past several years. This ongoing trend is expected to continue through the end of 2020.

Zillow.com has posted median home value in Salt Lake City at $407,370. The leading American online real estate database reported that home values have increased by 5.9% over the past year, and it is expected to continue to climb another 2.1% by the end of the year.

Through Zillow search results, we have found that there are currently 78 foreclosure listings in Salt Lake City. Also, the homes from the cities on this list typically stay on Zillow for anywhere from 50 to 60 days. While there are not a ton of foreclosures listed for sale in Salt Lake City, it is in large part due to the fact they don’t stay on the market for very long.

Salt Lake (Northeast and Northwest)

Two major cities in the northern region of Salt Lake County include Midvale and Magna. There has been a spike in home values in both of these cities (Midvale 5.6% increase and Magna 6.6 increase). There are currently three foreclosure listings on USAHUD.com in Salt Lake Northeast and Northwest regions combined.

Salt Lake (Southeast and Southwest)

A few examples of cities in the southeast and southwest region of the Salt Lake region include Draper, Sandy, Riverton, South Jordan, West Jordan, and Herriman. The home values in these cities have increased from anywhere from approximately 4% to 6% in just the last year alone. There are currently 2 foreclosure listings on USAHUD.com in Salt Lake Southeast and Northwest regions combined.

USAHUD

At USAHUD.com we strive to bring you the best homes in your area. No longer do you need to search through properties you don't want.

Search for your next home here.

HUD Foreclosures

HUD foreclosures and VA Foreclosures are some of the best homes to buy when price is part of the equation. As with most Americans, price is always a concern. If not buying the same house for less, why not buy more house for the same dollar invested? When looking for a good deal it is hard to do better than the VA or HUD foreclosures market. The simple truth is that there are just more VA and HUD homes on the market, as they represent such a large number of mortgages that are generated each year. This translates into more foreclosures just by the magnitude of difference between all others comparing to the two largest.

The two largest also being government owned and operated means that they have less time to wait to make money back on the home. The FHA is especially known for selling HUD homes for less than the average sales price in a given area. FHA foreclosures represent a fraction of HUD but they are still a significant number of homes and both should be considered.

VA (Veterans Administration) and HUD (Housing and Urban Development) have different and unique opportunities for the buyer. Both are often forgiven for the local taxes normally associated with the purchase of a home (this is on a county by county basis). Be sure to ask the local title company or escrow company to look into it for you before closing as this is often missed due to their are not used to dealing with the 2 to 3 percent of the market that VA and HUD foreclosures represent.

Foreclosure Listings Increasing

As the market settled after the mortgage meltdown foreclosure listings also settled and fewer homes were on the market with a placard reading “Bank Foreclosure” in big red lettering. This was a good thing for the entire real estate market. Having an abundance of foreclosures brings the entire market down and it makes it harder for home owners, who would like to move, to get the appropriate price for their home as a similar home down the same street was sold for substantially less and the appraiser is using the foreclosure as a comparable sale.

This is just one of the problems when there are too many foreclosure listings in any area. Another issue is the television set that sits in everyone’s living room harping about the price of homes based on the number of foreclosures and this constant barrage of negative information makes most people sit on the sidelines waiting for the market to either implode completely or to correct itself. Meanwhile while they wait, others are buying foreclosure listings and making great investments.

Whatever the reason, a market can only handle so many foreclosure listings at any given time. The more foreclosures, the lower the market gets and this is a lesson the banks that were foreclosing and selling off realized too late. The market and their investments would have been better off if there had not been a rush to divest themselves of the toxic assets made more toxic by their own actions.