Summit County housing market trends— doomsday or post pandemic plateauing?

"We’re now experiencing a normalizing or stabilizing of our market," Julie Snyder realtor and owner of Inhabit Park City said of the current trends. Photo: TownLift // Rayne Moynahan

PARK CITY, Utah — It seems like just yesterday, during the throes of the pandemic, people were panic-buying toilet paper, masks, Lysol wipes, and even houses. Whether buyers were fed up with city living during an unparalleled time or the pandemic was their push to make that move finally, the housing market went, undoubtedly, crazy.

Pandemic home buyers were pressured into paying exorbitant amounts above asking prices, waiving inspections, and bidding against many other home buyers. The bidding wars and frenzied atmosphere have ended thanks to more houses on the market for longer periods of time.

Summit Sotheby’s reported that Park City is seeing homes on the market for an average of 80 days (a 50% increase from September 2021), 57 days in Snyderville (down 13%), and 43 days in Heber and Midway (up 30%).

 

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In September, Fox 13 reported Utah home sales nose-diving as the effects of the COVID housing markets finally taper off, Federal Reserve rates rose, and inflation ballooned. But has the pendulum swung too far in the other direction?

“There is definitely a doomsday theme happening within the news and concerns that our real estate market is crashing,” said Julie Snyder, local realtor with Summit Sotheby’s International Realty and Inhabit Park City. “This is simply not the case in Park City and the surrounding areas. What happened over the past 2 ½ years was unprecedented. However, it was not sustainable. It was only a matter of time before we stopped seeing the amount of appreciation in values as quickly as we did.”

Snyder provided the following statistics for the Park City and Summit County housing market:

• New listings peaked in June at 420 listings and have been going back down since, with just 256 new listings in August.
• Under contracts are down 19% from Q1 to Q2 this year but down 19% from Q2 of 2019.
• Solds are down 8% from Q1 to Q2 but up 9% from Q2 of 2019.
• Inventory is up 36.5% from Q1 to Q2 but still down 47% from Q2 of 2019.
• The median price increased by 2.6% from Q1 to Q2 of this year and is 64% higher than it was in Q2 of 2019!

“We’re now experiencing a normalizing or stabilizing of our market,” said Snyder. “Too many people were getting put into situations to make fast and impulsive decisions. We now have an increase in inventory, with properties sitting on the market longer. However, we are still nowhere near the amount of inventory we had pre-pandemic, nor are homes sitting on the market as long as they did previously. It is just that we were going at such a rapid pace that, in comparison, it feels like we are crashing, but we are merely slowing down to a healthier pace. Buyers now have time to take a breath and think about their purchase or look at a variety of properties before making a decision. Financed buyers are able to come back into the market and have a fighting chance of buying something. These are all good things!”

Currently, Park City and Summit County fall in place with the state trends but can oftentimes be a standalone in the market due to being strongly related to the resort and tourism market. All in all, this creates a better environment for purchasers with more options at reasonable prices. Sellers are still seeing benefits even though their homes are on the market for longer.

Interest rates and inflation are heavily influencing market trends, which are beneficial to the market as a whole. Stay tuned for more updates on Q3 later this year.