Cache County Tops 900 Home Listings

The Home Buying Tax Credit has clearly had its impact on Logan Utah Real Estate. Unfortunately, not all of it is positive. Because many buyers moved their home purchases forward, we have seen a decrease in home sales over the normally heavy summer months. While home sales are slower than they've been recently, there has still been a high number of new home listings hit the market. This has brought us to a record high level of real estate inventory.

There are more homes for sale right now than there has ever been in Cache County. Right now 907 residential Cache Valley Homes for Sale appear on the MLS. As you can see from the graph, inventory levels dropped below 2009 levels during May, right at the end of the second home buying tax credit. Since that point they have steadily trended up. Overall, these high levels of inventory are creating a high absorption rate and will place downward pressure on home values. How low they will go, nobody knows. I just know that there are lots of homes for sale in Logan Utah.

Cache County Multi Family Home Sales Jan-June

Multi Family Home Sales in Cache County have been pretty slow through the first six months of the year. Just five Logan duplexes, and 8 four-plexes have sold thus far. The duplex sales numbers are actually down from a year ago when six duplexes sold in the first six months of the year. Right now there are 15 duplexes for sale in the Logan area. The median list price of these duplexes is $155,000, with an average price of $167,000. The duplexes that have sold this year have been very inexpensive with an average sales price of just $122,690.

Fourplex sales are up a little bit compared with a year ago, but most of the fourplexes that have sold were less expensive than previous years. The median price of the 8 fourplexes sold was just $228,450.

Click this link if you're interested in investing in real estate and want to view multi-family properties for sale in Cache County

Cache County Land Sales Improved! Just 5 Years of Real Estate Inventory

There is some improved news for Land Owners in Cache Valley, 2010 land sales are up 33% compared to the first six months of last year.

So far there has been 48 land parcels sold in Cache County this year. 17 of these were residential lots less than half an acre. The median price of these residential lots was $56,000 and the average sales price was $53,517. There are 11 plots of land under contract right now.

While Cache Valley land sales are improved, it still has a long way to go to before the Logan real estate market is balanced and land owners can expect their properties to sell for what they want, and in a timely manner. There are currently 203 lots less than half acre currently for sale, and an additional 302 lots for sale on parcels bigger than .5 acres. At this sales pace, Cache County has about five years worth of active real estate inventory.

June Sales Still Good - But Summer Sales in Logan Will Be Down

Cache County home sales for June were pretty good. 105 MLS homes have been reported sold thus far, an improvement of 5.71% compared with June of last year. June home sales numbers weren't quite as good as May's numbers, and were down by about 8%.

The average price of home sales in Cache County was substantially up during June compared with the last four months. This is a sign that many of the June home sales were not first time buyers, and were not effected by the home buying tax credits. The average price of Cache County Homes Sold during June was $180,724, with a median price of $161,000.

While home sales for the first half of 2010 were pretty positive, so far, the second half of the year doesn't happen to look so good. July is traditionally one of the strongest months for home sales. This month, there will probably be less than a hundred Cache County Homes sold. Right now Cache County has just 99 homes under contract. This is less than half the number of under contract homes as there were in May. Only about 70% of Under Contract properties actually close.

Logan Real Estate also has a record high number of listings on the market. Right now there are 883 active residential homes for sale in Cache County Utah. The price of these homes for sale has dropped. The median price of Cache County residential real estate is $189,900 and the average price is $244,129. If buyer activity doesn't start picking up, we will likely see prices continue to drop this winter.

Cache County Home Sales Up, Condo Sales Way up for First Half of 2010

It's hard to believe, but 2010 is nearly half way over. Real Estate sales in Cache County are up for the first half of the year compared with the first half of last year, and Cache Valley Condo sales are more than double what they were last year.

For single family houses in Cache County Utah, sales were up 8.76% from a year ago. There wasn't really a price disparity between the percentage change of more expensive homes and less expensive homes. Cache Valley homes priced below $200,000 saw a sales increase of 8.76%, and Home's priced above $200,000 saw an increase by 8.77%. Last year, homes priced above $200,000 saw a 41% decline compared with the first half of 2008.

Sales of Condos in Logan Utah were more than double last years numbers. 92 Condos and Townhouses sold this year compared with just 43 at this time last year. The average price of condos also declined, the average sold price this year of $124,100 is 10.66% less than last year. The median sales price of condos was just down by 5.14%.

While the quantity of homes that sold was up, prices were way down. The median price of homes sold in Cache County through the first half of the year was $156,000, down 8.18% compared with last years median price of $169,900. The average sold price was down slightly more at 8.54%.

Most of the individual cities in Cache County saw improvements in home sales, with the exception of Providence, and Hyde Park Real Estate. Logan Real Estate sales were up 18.14%, Smithfield Real Estate Sales Rose 26.79%, Hyrum Real Estate Sales increased 24.5%, Nibley Real Estate sales improved 20.6%, Wellsville Real Estate saw 5 more home sales, North Logan Real Estate sales increased 26.7%, and the rural Cache County communities saw home sales improvements of 16.33%.

Short Sale Numbers Slightly Up in Logan

While Total Real Estate inventory in Cache County is up, the number of short sales is also up, but still significantly less than a couple months ago. The number of Cache County Short Sale listings rose from 29 to 33, an increase of less than half a percent.

Record HIGH number of Home Listings in Cache County

Right now there are 854 residential homes for sale in Cache County Utah. By my records, this is the highest amount of Real Estate Inventory Cache County has ever had. The previous high I ever noted was 850 in July of last year.

So what does this mean?

In basic economics, it simply means that there is more supply than demand. When this happens, prices will drop. What it means overall is that it is not a good time to try and sell Logan Utah Real Estate. There will still be hundreds of Cache County homes that can and will sell, but the homes that do sell will be those that offer the best value. If you NEED to sell your home you want to make sure you have it priced low, and have it clean and presentable. Showings will be down, so those showings you get, you need to make count. If you don't NEED to sell, you might be better off by just taking your home off the market and learn to enjoy where you now live.

If you need to relocate, it's better to drastically drop the price on your house now rather than to leave it vacant for months or years. Doing so will reduce the overall loss. The high inventory, especially among the high end homes also means that many sellers may want to consider lease options or renting their homes out if the losses that need to be taken will be too much.

There are other variables, other factors of course, and with real estate what really matters is the amount of competition in a particular price range or area. Next month I plan to do my break down by price ranges, and by home sizes for the amount of real estate inventory. That will give us a better idea of which type of Cache Valley homes for sale have most saturated the market.