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Home sales sink in the first quarter
The number of houses and condos that changed hands dropped 45 percent
Patrick Parkinson, Of the Record staff
Article Launched: 04/25/2008 05:24:37 PM MDT
The number of houses and condominiums sold in the greater Park City area sank 45
percent compared to the first quarter last year, according to statistics
released this week by the Park City Board of Realtors.
Sales of single-family homes in January, February and March dropped from 209
last year to 113, Board of Realtors President Tyler Richardson said.
Condo sales sagged to 136 in the first quarter from 247 in the first quarter of
2007, he added.
"There is an opportunity for buyers to find a great value," Richardson said.
"There has never been a better time for locals to make a lateral move within our
market."
However, sellers must be flexible, he stressed.
Median home prices held steady in the first quarter despite the slump in sales,
Richardson said.
The price of a single-family home in the Park City area in the past three months
dipped slightly from last year to $649,140. New sales numbers show the median
home price within the Park City limits was nearly $1.8 million, down about 11
percent from last year.
In the Snyderville Basin, the median single-family home price fell four percent
to $742,450.
The median home price in Kamas dropped nine percent to $285,000 while house
prices in the Heber Valley jumped nine percent to $359,900, from $329,000 a year
ago.
"We have seen price adjustments going on in the market and sellers need to be
realistic in their pricing," Richardson said.
One of those sellers is Hilary Harris, who has tried to sell her four-bedroom
home in lower Pinebrook for a year and cannot afford to slash the price.
"We're getting by and we don't want to drop the price extremely just to get it
sold," said Harris, who put the house on the market last May. "It's kind of
annoying."
Her agent is also frustrated by the setback.
"I'm sure all the Realtors are frustrated," she said.
Last summer, Harris moved with her fiancé from Park City to Steamboat Springs,
Colo., where his parents helped the couple buy a home.
"We're renting over here and we had renters in [Pinebrook], but that just
ended," lamented Harris, who works in graphic design. "We're younger people and
we're not established. So it's a little tight."
They're asking around $500,000 for the home, which Harris acknowledged, prices
many families out.
"We're in an area where people can afford to wait if they can afford to buy in
that range," Harris said. "We had some people interested but they just decided
to wait and sit on it and watch the market."
But limited availability of financing nationwide should not hurt the ability for
Harris to sell her house, according to Richardson.
Financing in Summit County is more flexible because of the economic stimulus
package signed by President George W. Bush in February, he said, adding that the
new conforming loan limits are good news for buyers and sellers in Park City,
which is considered a "high-cost area."
Heavy snowfall in Summit County this winter contributed to the downturn in
sales, Richardson said.
"People didn't necessarily want to go out and look at real estate," he said.
But as the subprime mortgage mess hits U.S. real-estate markets, Park City "is
weathering the storm very well," Richardson said.
"While the volume of transactions is down, we are not seeing the dramatic fall
in prices, and only a slight increase in foreclosures," he said.
The dollar volume of real-estate sales in the Park City area dropped 43 percent
in the first quarter to $301 million, he said.
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