2009 Home Sales in Cache County Down 9%

While the last quarter of the year saw improvements in home sales in Cache County, overall 2009 real estate sales were substantially down compared with 2008.

For MLS listed homes, there were just 979 Cache County Homes sold, down 9% from the 1073 homes sold in 2008. Compared with 2007, when 1295 residential homes in Cache County Sold, home sales were down almost 25%. This is the lowest year of total home sales since 2003.

Prices of homes sold were down by 4.78%. This doesn't necessarily mean that all Cache County Real Estate depreciated 5%, but it does tell us that the homes that sold were less expensive. In all reality starter homes just slightly depreciated, and more expensive homes likely depreciated in value much more than 4.98%.

It will be interesting to see what happens with real estate sales in 2010. Many economists are predicting that Utah Real Estate will have bottomed out by the end of the summer.

Logan Utah Real Estate December Numbers

Logan Utah Real Estate sales during December were almost identical to a year ago. From the MLS Listings sold during December, there has been reported one more home sold, and the average and median prices of homes sold was just slightly down.

December of 2009 had 62 residential homes in Logan listed on the MLS sell. These homes had a median sales price of exactly $150,000 and an average price of $172,734.

At this time last year, there were 61 Logan UT Real Estate listings reported as sold. These homes had a median price of $151,840, and an average price at $161,499. The average price is almost $10,000 higher this year, in large part because there were two Cache Valley Homes priced above $450,000 that sold in 2009, while there weren't any homes that expensive that sold last year.

There are currently 693 homes for Sale in Cache County Utah. This is the lowest level of inventory since February. There are 9 more homes on the market right now than there were a year ago. At December's home sales pace, Cache Valley has 11.24 months of inventory. Until this goes down home prices will remain soft.

December is the first month in quite some time that is mostly unaffected by stimulus. Although the government tax credits were extended, and still in effect, they were late enough that there were likely very few closings during December that were a direct result of the new $6,500 tax credit.

If this is any indication of future home sales for Cache County, statistically we can expect a similar year for real estate in Cache Valley.

Q4 Cache County Home Sales up 16%

Home Sales in Cache County were up by 16% compared with the fourth quarter of 2008. So far, the there have been 249 Cache County Homes that have reported as sold on the MLS. These home sales numbers are very comparable with the fourth quarter of 2007 when the housing crisis in Logan really began.

While home sales were up compared with last year, the median and average price of Cache County Real Estate was substantially down. It was the lowest fourth quarter levels in four years actually. The median home sales price was $154,800, down 7.36% from the median sales price during Q4 of 2008. The average sold price of Cache County Homes was $170,743, down 4.82% from the average 2008 price of $179,743.

Multi Family Home Sales in Logan Improving

Home Sales of Multi Family Homes in Logan, Duplexes, Triplexes, and Fourplexes are improving. They are definitely not outstanding, but over the last three months they have been up compared with the rest of the year.

There are currently 9 Duplexes for Sale in Logan, and 26 Tri and Fourplexes for Sale. This includes most of the Multi-Family properties for sale in Cache County. Outside of Logan there are three additional duplexes for sale found in Smithfield and Hyrum, and one additional fourplex for sale.

In the last year 15 Duplexes in Cache County have sold. With the current 12 on the market, this gives Cache County 9.6 months of inventory at the annual rate. But, during the last three months 5 Cache County Duplexes have sold. This is just 7.2 months of inventory at the past three month pace.

Inventory of tri and four-plexes has also seen improvement, but the numbers are still pretty dismal. Cache County currently has 27 tri/fourplex properties for sale. In the last year, just 13 of these properties have sold. This is more than 2 Years of inventory! But, over the last three months there have been 4 fourplexes sold, which lightens the blow a little bit and brings the active inventory down to 20 months.

Overall there still just isn't a lot of buyer activity for investment properties in Logan. By far, duplex purchases have been the most popular. It's a tough market to try and sell four-plexes.

You can view all the MLS listed Duplex's, Triplexes, and Fourplexes for sale in Logan here.

Cache County Sellers are Getting Closer to Ask Price

Cache Valley home sellers have been getting 6.5% less than their original list price when selling their homes the last two months. This is closer to the original list price than we've seen in a while.

This tells us that either home buyers are offering more, or else sellers are now more realistic with their original list price. From April-September, the average sales price of Cache County Utah Real Estate was more than 10% less than the original list price.

Short Sales in Logan Utah

There are currently 12 Short Sales in Logan Utah, and 35 in the smaller Cache Valley cities. This is up slightly from last month. Currently, 6.37 percent of all active listings are Cache Valley Short Sales.

Five of the current Logan Short Sales have already been approved by the bank. This means the purchase transaction shouldn't be much different than an ordinary transaction from the buyers standpoint. The other 62 Cache County properties listed as short sales still require bank approval before closing can actually take place. This means the real estate transaction could take many months, or may not actually even happen at all if the bank isn't willing to allow the short sale.

Here are the five Cache Valley Short Sales that have supposedly already had bank approval. Two of these are huge houses in the North Logan/Hyde Park area.

Click this link to view all Cache Valley Short Sales for Sale.

November Home Sales up 37% from 2008

Cache County home sales were up 37% compared with November of last year when just 51 residential homes in Cache Valley sold. So far, 81 Cache Valley homes have been reported sold by the MLS.


The huge increase in home sales can largely be attributed to the scheduled expiration of the first time buyer tax credit. Although it has been extended, many people purchased Logan real estate because they were trying to beat the expiration.

With many of the homes purchased by first time buyers, the median price of homes sold in Logan was also substantially down. The median sold price was just $150,000, the lowest it has been in years.

Even though home sales were up compared with last year, they were down compared with October. The amount of homes for sale in Logan only declined slightly during November. At November's home sales rate, there is currently 9.3 months of active real estate inventory in Cache Valley. The actual number of homes on the market has gone down, but as a ratio the inventory is up.