March 2016 active listings (inventory) was down 32% from March 2015; yet, pending sales are up 8% in Salt Lake City County. This trend of low inventory by high pendings has occurred consistently for the last year. Bottom line: demand for housing remains strong, and inventory remains constrained.
Utah county has slowed slightly as far as pendings and Davis County has the lowest number of listings. The county is down 45% in inventory when compared to the same time last year. Once again, Davis county has more pending deals than they do active inventory.
Weber County is showing the same signs of frantic buyer interest with inventory down 37% from March of last yet, but pending sales are up 9%.
Davis County is seeing the strongest appreciation if you look at the month of March 2016 over 2015, with a 10% increase in median sales price this year.
Median price closed out at $255,000 in SLC county, which is up from January by almost 7%! Pricing is skyrocketing in the affordable price range; for Wasatch front, anything under $500K is seeing rapid appreciation. Median price in SLC may reach over $260K for all unit types and could surpass $300K for single family homes. That's a ceiling we've never even gotten close to in Salt Lake City.
Remember it's a seasonal market and this is common. If we remove the seasonality and just compare March 2015 to Feb 2016 median price is up 7%. This conveys that the market ceiling is really being challenged. On one hand, there is nothing to buy because inventory is low; but, at the same time buyers are experiencing price shock since the market got back to all time new highs in 2015.
Our take: The market will remain hot with more inventory coming to market over the next 90 days and likely will still see strong appreciation until inventory gets back to normal market levels.
