A “for sale” sign is displayed outside of a house in Layton. Median price of a home just went down for the first time in 10 years. A Utah realtor joined KSL at Night to discuss what this means for Utah. Photo: Shafkat Anowar, Deseret News
SALT LAKE CITY — The median price of a home in the United States just went down for the first time in 10 years.
Cate Klundt, government affairs director for the Utah Association of Realtors, joined KSL at Night with hosts Leah Murray and Derek Brown to discuss how this will impact Utah.
“We knew it would come to an end, like at some point,” Brown said of the increase in home prices. “It’s not sustainable, and it looks like maybe we’re there.”
Brown asks Klundt, “Is this a big deal that we’ve seen a change in the slope of that line? What does that indicate to you?”
“So first, I will say that we don’t ever want the value of our home to go down,” Klundt said. “We want it to increase though. And that’s not what it did during COVID. And that’s why there has been a lot of turnmoil in the housing market nationally, but also here in Utah.”
Klundt says home prices are dropping about 10% to 15% and that appears to be holding true in Utah as well.
“And what that means is like, we’re having a cooling off period essentially from the incredible growth that we’ve had for like the last four years,” she said. “Which is not a bad thing. But it is unique for Utah because Utah still has a deficit of homes.”
Klundt says the median home price across the country is $367,000. In Utah, the median home price is $450,000.
According to Klundt, the median income in Utah is $75,000 and that’s for a two-income household.
“So if you make $75,000, I can tell you right now that you’re not qualifying for a $450,000 house,” Klundt said.
Murray asked, “Getting the housing market into that price range where people actually could qualify for those loans, how long will it take?”
“I don’t know that I can give you like in terms of a timeline. And how many houses we can close the gap every year,” Klundt said. “But what I will say that like in the last four to five years that I’ve been working on this issue, we have closed about a third of that gap.”
She says a problem with housing is when interest rates go up, builders stop building.
“We really need them to keep going and building if we want to close the gap completely,” Klundt said.
KSL at Night can be heard on weeknights from 7 to 9 p.m.
Read more: Housing market in Utah looking better for first-time home buyers, says real-estate agent.