Salt Lake area home prices lag behind national recovery

SALT LAKE CITY — Salt Lake area home prices continue lagging behind the national housing recovery.

The latest data from the National Association of Realtors show that an increasing number of metropolitan areas across the country experienced price gains year-over-year, but the Salt Lake City metro market was not among them.

The association's survey found that 91 metropolitan statistical areas had higher median existing single-family home prices in this year's first quarter versus the first quarter of 2009, including 29 markets recording increases in the double digits. Salt Lake City, meanwhile, joined 57 other metro markets showing decreasing home prices. Three markets were unchanged.

With a median home price of $203,800 in the first quarter of this year, the Salt Lake market was tied with Milwaukee as the 33rd most expensive market nationally.

The association also reported most states experienced gains in the number of homes sold during the first quarter of 2010 compared with the same period a year earlier. Utah followed the national sales trend, posting a 19.7 percent increase in homes sold in this year's first quarter compared with the same period of 2009.

Lawrence Yun, the association's chief economist, credits the federal homebuyers tax credit for "about 1 million additional sales."

Local experts say Utah's housing slide didn't start until a year after the national housing bubble burst — a gap in timing that still persists.

Dave Anderton, communications director for the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, said the national median price peaked in the summer of 2006, while the median price in Salt Lake County didn't peak until the summer of 2007.

"Prices here were running up for a full year when the rest of the country was heading down," Anderton said.

Given the latest survey data, might Utah house prices still be headed lower?

Anderton said prices are off 15 percent from the 2007 peak. And in a January report to the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, Jim Wood, director of the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and Business Research, predicted additional price erosion in Salt Lake County of 3 percent to 5 percent through the end of the year.

Likewise, Utah League of Cities and Towns economist Doug McDonald has predicted a nearly 9 percent decline in residential construction values.

Both economists see an improved housing picture for 2011.

e-mail: chuck@desnews.com