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Wasatch Front home markets keep pushing skyward as prices and sales continue to rise and homebuyers scour the region for bargains.

Nearly 8,426 homes changed hands across the five Wasatch Front counties during 2015's third quarter, according to new data from the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.

About 3,811 of those sales came in Salt Lake County, for a 15.4 percent quarter-over-quarter gain.

That's a solid pace for what is traditionally a time when sales start to slow from spring and midsummer highs.

In fact, the market's trajectory suggests it could start hitting highs reached between 2005 and 2007, just before the Great Recession, said Dave Robison, Salt Lake Board of Realtors president.

Utah job growth and population increases have combined with tight inventories of existing homes and modest slowing in new home construction to heighten demand.

"It's a perfect storm," Robison said, "and it's still brewing."

Median prices on single-family homes, meanwhile, jumped for the quarter in all five Wasatch Front counties. Only nine of the region's estimated 85 ZIP codes saw home-price declines, and those were either slight or based on nominal sales.

"To get a new home with a small yard, you're usually paying $350,000 to $400,000," said Robison, with goBE Realty in Salt Lake City and South Jordan.

New numbers for July, August and September now put the median price of a single-family home in Salt Lake County at $279,000, nearly $22,500 more than it was at the same time last year, for an 8.8 percent spurt.

Elsewhere, prices rose for the quarter by between 3.8 percent (in Tooele County) and 8.6 percent (Utah and Davis counties).

Purchasing patterns also suggest homebuyers are being drawn to more affordable alternatives.

Some of the top-selling areas for the quarter were in Clearfield, Tooele, Farr West, Roy and Taylorsville, where median prices tended to fall below the regional average.

But more expensive pockets of South Jordan, Herriman and Draper also saw top sales volumes.

More tellingly, sales of condominiums — often a less-costly option for homeownership — surged along the Wasatch Front during the third quarter, jumping to 2,022 units sold, a 30.6 percent increase over the same period last year.

The spike was even higher in Salt Lake County, with a 35.9 percent boost in condo sales.

"Everybody who is selling is happy," said Babs De Lay, who specializes in condo sales for Urban Utah Homes and Estates in Salt Lake City.

That end of the housing market has also seen tight inventories, De Lay and others said. Construction of both single-family homes and condos has been squeezed amid a boom in multifamily-housing projects in urban and suburban areas across the region.

"Ninety-five percent of everything going up right now is apartments," De Lay said.

The median condo price stood at $188,972 in Salt Lake County, the region's highest and well above the lowest on the Wasatch Front, at $123,000 in Weber County.

tsemerad@sltrib.com Twitter: @TonySemerad —

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