This month the family has just returned from two awesome weeks in Huntington Beach, CA. Zander and Aria had an amazing trip and enjoyed the extra love and attention they received as well as the warm weather. With kids it seems TIME is their language of love; time and attention seem to cure all. Tough to do when you’re trying to juggle so many balls at a time, but nothing is more important and fulfilling when you can give them all the time they need.
Aria is now walking and has an incredible vocabulary of about 30 words, not bad for a girl who just celebrated her first birthday. She’s also learning sign language, which is just too cute. We frequented The Chocolate Factory while on vacation and she kept signing please, please, please to the lady helping us choose the best chocolate. It was very funny!
Z-Man is going through that crazy boy stage. (Does that ever really end?) He’s constantly pushing the limits and doing something dangerous whenever possible. He’s all boy, constantly bruised & scratched up from launching himself off something.
Raising these two characters is a lot of work and sacrifice, but what a journey. I would not want it any other way.
Speaking of time well spent… Have you seen what’s happening to home prices over the last 12 months? The graphic below is from S&P,Case-Shiller index, which was just released for October and shows that nationally home prices have just posted their biggest annual jump in two years. What I think is even more telling than one month’s reading, is the trend line, this graphic is pretty powerful showing we’ve definitely started turning the corner nationally for home values.
Utah’s housing market has also continued to improve throughout the fall, according to data released by the Utah Association of Realtors. Although sales and prices remain well off their pre-recession peaks, the number of home sales rose nearly 12 percent in October over the same month last year and the median sales price was up more than 5 percent. There were more sales during the first 10 months in 2012 than in all 12 months of 2008 and 2010.
This is exactly in line with what I’m seeing in my practice. Increased interest from move up buyers and investors continue to surprise me; it continues to feel we are in definite recovery mode.
“The year has really marked a turnaround,” said Cal Musselman, 2013 president of the Utah Association of Realtors. “High affordability, plunging inventories, rising rents and fewer foreclosures have all contributed to increasing prices and to the recovery.”
The Utah median sales price was up for the seventh consecutive month in October, registering $183,000, up from $174,000 last year.
Even though prices are on the upswing, a measure of affordability provided by the Realtors group also showed improvement. From January to October, the UAR’s Affordability Index registered 178, up 8.5 percent from last year, meaning that a family earning the median income had 178 percent of what it needed to qualify for a median-priced home under prevailing interest rates.
“Several years of price declines and low interest rates have put home ownership back in reach,” Musselman said, adding the rent increases of 4 percent to 5 percent could be encouraging consumers to buy.
A sharp drop in homes available for sale also could be contributing to a rise in home prices because more buyers are competing for fewer properties. Inventory, which the Realtors group said dropped nearly 23 percent from last October, is at its lowest level since January 2007.
This drop in inventory is pushing many homebuyers towards new construction, which is also seeing a very strong resurgence. I think this is the next leg of the real estate recovery, which we’ll see play out in 2013. As more and more buyers move to new construction, our local economy will continue to recover and home prices will continue to climb. I believe 2013 will be VERY strong for new construction.
If you or someone you know is interested in buying or building a new home in 2013, it would be my pleasure to help them.
