A red-hot housing market has turned the Wasatch Front into a seller's market, where multiple offers and quick sales are becoming routine.

In the first quarter of 2006, the median price of a single-family house in Salt Lake County rose to $200,747, up 16.7 percent from $172,000 in the first quarter of 2005, according to a report released Thursday by the Wasatch Front Regional Multiple Listing Service, which tracks sales of existing and newly constructed homes sold through a real estate agent.

Median values are the midway point at which half of all homes sold in a particular area are higher in price and the other half are lower.

In addition to skyrocketing prices, houses are selling faster, according to the report. The average number of "days on market" for a typical Salt Lake County home fell to 39 days in this year's first quarter from 61 days a year ago.

"We're seeing some incredible numbers here," said Debra Sjoblom, past president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors and now a director for the National Association of Realtors. "It is certainly very brisk. We're definitely seeing multiple offers.

"It's absolutely a seller's market versus a buyer's market, but luckily we're not in a Las Vegas market or a California market where it's just bidding wars and things are doubling overnight."

Sjoblom said properties priced under $300,000 are selling quickly, with more expensive properties also picking up momentum.

In Holladay, ZIP code 84124, prices jumped to $306,000, up nearly 29 percent compared to the median sales price in last year's first quarter. In Draper, ZIP code 84020, prices climbed to $358,000, a nearly 13 percent increase.

Other counties are experiencing similar gains. The median price of a single-family home in Utah County in the first quarter rose to $187,950, up 13.9 percent from $165,000 a year earlier. Davis County saw its home prices increase to $174,945, up 10.4 percent. In Weber County, prices rose 8.4 percent to $136,900.

"We're seeing a lot of out-of-state people coming in from many different industries," Sjoblom said. "I just had an executive come in . . . from Honolulu." Sjoblom said she'd recently sold a house to someone from Cleveland — "coming in as a fellow at Primary Children's (Medical Center)."

Such double-digit price appreciation gains have not been seen in Utah since the mid-1990s, according to a March report by the U.S. Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight. According to the federal report, home prices statewide rose an average 13.36 percent in the fourth quarter of 2005 compared to the same quarter in 2004, moving Utah to a No. 18 spot among all states and the District of Columbia in house-price appreciation.