Which out-of-state buyers are interested in Utah real estate? California tops list
SANDY – It’s a question everyone’s asking: Who is fueling Utah’s real estate frenzy? A new list provides some insight into who’s searching for homes for sale in the Beehive State.
The multiple listing service UtahRealEstate.com provided KSL TV a list of the top states with people visiting its website from June 2020 to June 2021.
Utah: 61.2% (5.23 million users)
California: 9.7% (835k users)
Colorado: 3% (260k users)
Virginia: 2.9% (246k users)
Idaho: 2.7% (232k users)
New York 2% (172k users)
“California, probably the L.A., San Francisco areas, the D.C. metro and New York City, those are three huge urban areas where people are migrating out and Utah is clearly one of the destinations they are looking at,” said UtahRealEstate.com CEO Brad Bjelke.
He described Utah’s housing market as a frenzied competition with heavy demand for all forms of housing.
“The pandemic has changed life,” Bjelke said. “A lot of people are moving out of Manhattan. They don’t need to work in an office building anymore and they’re looking for more space, more land, yards and bigger homes and moving from small condos and this is a perfect area for people to have a good quality of life.” Bjelke said homes in Utah are only spending about three to five days on the market before being sold. “Really what we’re seeing is a record number of listings being put into the multiple listing system monthly,” he said. “Year over year, higher numbers than we’ve seen in the past – but the days on market for those listings is incredibly short.”
UtahRealEstate.com provided KSL TV a list of the top states with people visiting its website from June 2020 to June 2021. (Photo: KSL TV)
Bjelke said he doesn’t see the demand for homes in Utah stopping any time soon. “I thought price point would stop it but we’re seeing so many homes in the million-dollar range that are flying off the market, which is really inexplicable in a lot of ways,” he said. Slightly earlier in the pandemic, from May 2020 through April 2021, New York was higher on the list of states where residents were accessing Utah’s real estate listings.
Utah: 60.6%
California: 9.4%
New York: 3.2%
Colorado: 2.8%
Idaho: 2.8%
Virginia: 2.8%
Last week the Utah Association of Realtors reported that the median sales price for a home in Utah reached a new record high in May.
The median home sales price in Utah increased by $100,000 in just the last year to $435,000. That calculates to a nearly 30% increase from May 2020, when the median sales price was $334,974.
When Steve Allen retired about six years ago and he and his wife, Michelle, moved from Northern California to Heber City, the home purchase came with plenty of perks.
In May 2019, the median sales price in Utah was $321,277.
“Robust buyer demand, fueled by low mortgage rates, continues to outpace supply, which remains near historic lows,” the association said in its monthly report.
This spring, the Utah Foundation said an analysis found that Californians moving to Utah don’t seem to be the reason for steep increases in home and rental prices.
“Why are we seeing these increases? The Utah Foundation has looked whether it might be due in part to an influx of Californians. That does not seem to be the answer,” the report stated.
The rate of people moving into Utah’s larger metropolitan areas is actually down, the report went on to say.
“However, the increase in demand is actually due in part to fewer residents than normal leaving – particularly in the Salt Lake area – thus pushing up housing costs and rent,” wrote Christopher Collard, a senior analyst with the Utah Foundation.
The multiple listing service UtahRealEstate.com provided KSL TV a list of the top states visiting its website from June 2020 to June 2021. (Mark Wetzel, KSL TV)
By Ladd Egan, KSL TV | Posted – July 8, 2021 at 8:09 a.m.
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UtahRealEstate.com provided KSL TV a list of the top states with people visiting its website from June 2020 to June 2021. (Photo: KSL TV)
