Is winter a good time to buy a house in Salt Lake City, Utah area? Well, today I’m going to answer that question for you. So stay tuned.
Hi, this is Melissa Ballman, and I am a realtor here in the Greater Salt Lake City, Utah area. So what that means, if you’re looking at making a move for real estate in the Greater Salt Lake City Area, I’d love to connect with you. You can shoot me a message, drop a comment below, give me a call, whatever you have to do, just get in contact with me. Also make sure you subscribe to my YouTube channel and click the bell below. That way, you’re alerted each week when I drop a new video. So let’s talk about winter in the Salt Lake City, Utah market, and if it’s a good time to buy a house. So in the Utah market in the winter time, a couple of things happen.
One, inventory goes down from where it is in the spring and the summer, and the sellers that are on the market in the winter are typically going to be a really serious seller. It’s not unusual in the spring and summertime markets to find sellers that are just throwing their house out on the market to kind of see what happens. And if they can get top dollar for their house. In the winter time, people usually list their house because they’re in a position they need to move and they don’t really have the option of not selling their house necessarily.
So what do I mean by that? Well, in the winter time, if a seller has their house on the market, it’s usually going to be for a job transfer or they’re moving, they’re building a new house and it’s almost done. Things like that where they don’t want to hold on to their house or they can’t hold on to the house and so they put it up for sale. Also, historically the percentage of a home sales price to what it’s listed for is usually lower in the winter months, usually between about December and April are kind of the lowest months of sales price for homes. And what I mean by that is if a seller lists their house for $100,000, they’re usually in about a 95% to list value. So if they have it listed at $100,000, they’re selling for $95,000 in those December to April months.
But in the spring and summer, especially in 2020, the percentage goes up to 99, 100, 101%. So they’re actually in some cases getting more for their house than what they’re listing it for. And those are just averages. It’s not every house or every situation, but be aware that historically, and there’s nothing historic about 2020, I know. It’s very different in the winter months for buyers and sellers, both.
I hope you’re enjoying my video today. If you’re on Facebook, make sure you subscribe to the group called Salt Lake Life. It’s all things happening in the Salt Lake City area. Now let’s talk about some numbers to put in perspective, if you’re considering buying a house and you think you might want to wait.
So now we’re still in the fourth quarter of 2020. So I’m going to go over some numbers for third quarter. Looking back at the third quarter of 2017, the average sales price was $323,000. That’s for all homes in Salt Lake, Utah and Davis Counties. Fast forward 3 years to the third quarter of 2020 and the average sales price is $426,000. That means in 3 years, home values have gone up $100,000. So if you’re on the fence about buying, you’ll see in this graph, the numbers are going up consistently on the average sales price. So don’t wait and price yourself out of the market.
I hope you enjoyed my video today. If you’re thinking about making a move in the real estate market, I’d love to connect with you. Like I said, give me a call, shoot me a text, email, do what you have to do. Just get in contact with me. I’d love to help you out and talk more about your real estate goals. Because after all in my job, I love to help people find their homes in Utah. As always, make it a great day.