Park City Real Estate Trends

Park City, Utah home and condominium prices in general are still rising, but a few things have had me scratching my head recently.

I study the data on the Wasatch Back (formerly Park City) Multiple Listing Service (MLS) daily. I watch the new listings, pended sales, completed sales, removed listings and price changes depending on the day of the week, there are 35-75 daily changes.

Price Changes can really give an idea of which way the market is trending although in some cases they make me wonder “what was that agent or owner thinking?” when they priced it originally. Recently I sent a new listing to a client with a note stating, “this is priced well and likely won’t last long”.  Two weeks later it still hadn’t sold which made me question my knowledge, but then a price increase on the property showed up with the price going UP by nearly 35%. I somewhat wrote this off to an agent with little experience in our market, but I noticed something similar from a seasoned agent that knows our Park City real estate market well. This time it was a 20% price increase, but both properties remain on the market a few weeks later waiting for offers on their increased prices. Maybe we can chalk it up to greedy Sellers(?).

While price increases on listed Park City properties are fairly rare outside of new construction which often sees pricing go up as the projects are closer to complete, price reductions are common. Owners may like to “test” the market with a high initial price only to lower it after a few weeks. Lately though it has not been uncommon to see prices be lowered by 20% or more. Seeing a $500,000 drop on the price of a home is surely a good talking point, but I’m not convinced that it is a great marketing strategy. Buyers will tend to not even look at a property that is too far above the market and Sellers often get “anchored” to their original price whether or not it was realistic.

The Park City real estate market has a lot of moving parts and inventory can be quite slim depending on what exactly you have to sell or are looking to buy. Properties that are priced well move quickly, but it doesn’t mean that you can get or need to pay 20% more than the market value.

If you are looking to Buy or Sell property in the Park City, Utah area or just want a better feel for what is going on in the market, contact a realty professional with the YouInParkCity.com Group

(435)962-9472.