Salt Lake's Real Estate Market is Recovering!

The Directors of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors just released the following message that clearly shows that the local real estate market is in a transitional phase -

Board of directors message

Salt Lake’s real estate market is showing clear signs of a recovery. More than 1,000 homes went under contract in January, a nearly 40 percent increase compared to homes under contract a year ago, according to Utahrealestate.com.

The increase in pending home sales can be traced to the creation of more Utah jobs, rising home affordability and falling home inventories.

In fact, the number of new listings in Salt Lake County in the fourth quarter of 2011 fell to 3,686, the lowest level in 14 years (third quarter 1997).

According to a recent government report, “all of Utah’s industrial sectors are adding jobs, the lone exception being government … The industrial sector leading Utah’s employment growth is professional and business services — up 11,000 positions over the past year. Half of this is in high-paying professional and technical industries like legal services, computer systems design, consulting, and marketing research. The other half is through employment service businesses (temporary help services), which supply workers to other businesses and industries.”

Currently, in Salt Lake County there are 4,723 active listings, according to Utahrealestate.com. Of that number, 36 percent of those listings are under contract or about 1,689 listings.