I’m not going to lie, 2023 was a brutal year for Real Estate. Whether it was just perception of an impending “bubble” burst (nope) or the very real effect of a huge jump in interest rates without a corresponding increase in income to keep up with overall inflation, people weren’t listing much. I get it, it’s sometimes hard to jump out of a 3% mortgage and into a 7% rate. Can’t blame you for that. I’d like to thank our “friends” at the Federal Reserve that decided that tanking 20% of our national economy was a great way to solve a problem without looking at the downstream effects. Hopefully, that idiocy is largely behind us. That said, I’ll be the first to admit that the years we spent around 3% was a really bad policy as well. It’s my hope that things settle between 5.5-6%. Healthier for the market as a whole.
But, I digress…
The numbers for 2023 in Tooele County Home sales are in. According to stats from the Utah Association of Realtors, home sales dropped by 8.5% in ‘23. A couple thoughts here. First of all, any time you’re coming off the frenzy of ‘20-‘22, a drop was in the cards. Listings themselves dropped over 16%, but supply & demand is still the law. High demand and low supply kept things from really coming down, despite crazy rates.
How about prices? After a couple years of 20%+ appreciation, a drop was bound to happen. Median & Average sales price both dropped around 7%. Median price dropped to $440K. This still shows Tooele County as a better deal than anywhere along the Wasatch Front, to the tune of $40-60k.
Days on market nearly doubled over ‘22, at 57 days average. This is a bit closer to a “normal” market historically. Finally, as a percentage of original list price, sellers were still getting nearly 97% of what they listed for. This does NOT include any concessions, which most definitely were up this year as buyers needed help getting those high rates bought down!
I’ll touch one my forecast another time, but I for one am THRILLED that ‘23 is over, for many reason. I look for better things in ‘24!