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Sales of existing houses and condos in Salt Lake County dropped in August from a year earlier, as did the median sales price, indicating the area housing market remains soft.
Still, with sales up in June and July compared to 2008, some see a market that has leveled out after the plunge in sales and prices that began in 2007 with the implosion of the U.S. real estate market. That implosion was caused by subprime lending and other practices that led the nation into what's being called The Great Recession.
"We were pretty confident 2008 was the bottom of the market because we saw the couple of months of year-over-year increases this summer," Dave Anderton of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors said Thursday. "August is close enough [to June and July sales that] I think we're not going to fall below '08 levels in '09."
Home sales were up six percent in June and five percent in July compared to a year earlier.
Nationally, home resales dipped unexpectedly last month after a four-month streak of gains. That provides evidence that the housing market recovery remains fragile.
In the West, foreclosures continued to fuel a sales surge, primarily in California, Arizona and Nevada. That helped drag down the region's median home sales price more than 12 percent from August last year to $220,500, according to the National Association of Realtors.
"Prices have fallen so much in the West that I think that's also encouraging some buyers --
The West's sales edged up nearly one percent from July. That bucked the national trend, which saw sales tumble 6.2 percent from July to August, but rise 2 percent above previous-year levels, without adjusting for seasonal factors.
In Salt Lake County, August house and condo sales declined 4.5 percent in August from the same month last year, the Board of Realtors said, while the median sales price was down about 3 percent. The August median sales price was about a 10 percent decline figure from $243,000 in June of 2007 when the roaring real estate market peaked, according to Salt Lake Board of Realtors' figures.
Ryan Kirkham, principal broker at Kirkham and Friends Real Estate, said the August numbers can be deceptive because certain areas of the county have robust markets, particularly older, established neighborhoods where many people have been in their homes five years or more. Areas with a lot of new homes -- where there are a number for foreclosures or short sales in which homes are sold at less than what is owed on a loan -- are suffering the most, said Kirkham, who is president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.
"If you go into these areas that are more established, where there was not a lot of construction, hence there's not a lot of foreclosure and short-sale activity, prices are doing better," he said.
Nationally, sales dropped 2.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.1 million in August, from a pace of 5.24 million in July, the National Association of Realtors said. Compared with a year ago, however, home sales are up 3.4 percent.
The results surprised analysts, according to The AP.
"We suspect it is just a temporary blip in the improving trend rather than a sign of renewed weakness," wrote Paul Dales, U.S. economist at Capital Economics.
Nevertheless, there is a key unknown on the horizon: A tax credit of up to $8,000 for new homeowners expires on Nov. 30. Congress is facing intense pressure from real estate agents and homebuilders to extend it, but it's unclear whether lawmakers want to spend more money to prop up the housing market.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
| 2008 | 2009 | Change |
| 1,052 | 1,005 | -4.5% |
Median sales price
| $225,000 | $218,500 | -3% |
