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Report shows slowing sales in Park City area as housing costs continue to rise

Throughout Summit County, housing prices and sales have continued to rise for the past few years. Now, things appear to be leveling out, according to the Park City Board of Realtors.
Park Record File Photo

Home sales and prices in Summit County have paralleled each other in their steady growth in recent years, but now both statistics are starting to slow and level out.

A recent quarterly report from the Park City Board of Realtors showed slowing sales and a moderate uptick in the median cost of homes. While there are several factors playing into the shift, Todd Anderson, president of the Board of Realtors, said nationwide, it seems home price tags are growing faster than wages, and something has to give.

“At some point, people still have to be able to pay for (their home), so one or the other has to change,” he said.



Cities across the nation, including Park City, have watched the ballooning costs of homes that have grown out of many people’s price range. Anderson said the tapering off of prices and sales in Summit County has become more apparent in the last six months, which could be a trend moving forward.

“I don’t think we are going to see a big downturn, I think we are going to see things flatten out for a while,” Anderson said.



The number of single-family home sales in the Park City area decreased by 4.5 percent compared to the same time last year, according to the Board’s third-quarter report. The median price of those homes remained at $1.95 million in the city limits, a similar number to 2017. Meanwhile, the number of condominiums sold in Park City proper declined 5 percent.

In the Snyderville Basin, however, sales and prices of single-family homes rose fairly significantly. The median sales price jumped up 22 percent to $1.2 million, and there were twice the number of sales in the area compared to within the city limits. Condo sales in the Basin remained relatively even with last year’s pace.

The Promontory area had the highest number of single-family home sales in the region and the Tuhaye and Hideout region also saw higher sales, as well as a 28 percent growth in median prices.

Anderson said that growth is partly attributed to new developments in those areas, especially around Tuhaye and Hideout. When inventory is added to the market, it can skew numbers. More inventory means more sales, he said, and oftentimes the prices of those units are higher because they are new.

Rising construction costs have also contributed to the uptick in median sales price, Anderson said. Materials affected by tariffs, namely steel from China and lumber from Canada, have increased in cost over the last year, requiring developers to charge more for the properties.

“As we look year over year, it’s about a 30 percent increase, so that’s significant,” he said.

The high cost of construction means some projects are taking longer to complete than originally planned, which slows the growth of new development and remodels, Anderson said. In the report, he said Canyons Village and Deer Mountain have potential for plenty of new construction, which will likely cause “large fluctuations” to the market.

If inventory is able to grow in the area, Anderson predicts that housing prices will remain steady or even drop slightly.


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