Northern Utah's 1st quarter home sales take a dive

The number of homes in several northern Utah counties that sold during the first three months of 2009 fell significantly from the same period last year, according to a report released Tuesday.

The data compiled by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors showed that homes sales in Salt Lake County fell 24 percent compared to the first quarter in 2008. Similar declines occurred in Tooele County, which showed a 25 percent sales decrease; Davis County, where sales dropped 27 percent; and Weber County, which saw sales fall nearly 29 percent.

Sales in Utah County declined the least during the period, decreasing just 4.5 percent from first quarter 2008 to first quarter 2009, according to the report.

Despite the heavily reduced sales volume, the report showed less-dramatic changes in the median prices of homes that sold. Weber County's median remained flat, Salt Lake County's median sales price fell by less than 1 percent, Davis County's median sales price dropped just over 1 percent, Utah County declined 2.6 percent and Tooele County's median decreased just over 6 percent, the report said.

According to the report, which tracks quarterly single-family home and condominium sales in the five-county region, 60 of 79 ZIP codes surveyed experienced decreases in median sales prices.

While the vast majority of neighborhoods saw their median sales prices decline, the countywide change in prices was rather small, Kendall Oliphant, senior vice president of Thredgold Economic Associates, told the Deseret News on Tuesday. He attributed the modest sale price decreases to the fact that price had fallen precipitously over the past few quarters, leaving little room for much more decline.

"There is a limit to how low home values are going to go," he said. "As we get close to bottom, the percentage decline is going to slow down — in other words, the declines are decelerating."

Oliphant said that in the not-so-distant future, the decreasing trend will begin to reverse and prices will start to appreciate once again.

"The good news is that the U.S. economy is poised to rebound in the next couple of months," he said. "That's obviously going to trickle down and help Utah and local housing markets."

However, the state's labor market may prevent a more robust recovery as the Utah economy struggles to keep from losing more jobs, he said.