SL Board of Realtors forecast: Home sales & prices to rise in '24

Both home sales and prices are expected to rise in Salt Lake County this year, according to a report commissioned by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.

The 2024 Salt Lake Housing Forecast Report projects residential home sales to rise 16 percent, reaching 13,000 homes. That is up from last year’s 12-year low of 11,195 homes. Among the drivers are factors including more favorable mortgage interest rates, improved consumer sentiment, and an increase in listings.

Meanwhile, the median home price is expected to balloon as mortgage interest rates soften. The forecast indicates a reversal of the prior-year price decline of 2.8 percent, with an anticipated 3 percent rise in the median sales price for all homes, bringing it to $530,500.

The median price of single-family homes is poised to grow by 2.4 percent, reaching $600,000, while the price for condominiums, townhomes and twin homes is expected to see a 5 percent boost, advancing to $436,000.

“Although prices look to be ticking up, it will be many months before the monthly median sales price exceeds the May 2022 peak price of $565,300,” the report says.

The most rapid two-year rise in housing prices occurred in 2020-22 but prices in Salt Lake County “were surprisingly resistant to even a modest decline in 2023,” the report notes. “In the past 50 years of price history there have been only two other periods of price declines, the 1980s and Great Recession (2008-11).”

Those two price-decline periods “were marked by high rates of unemployment, above 6 percent, and either job losses or meager rates of job growth, less than 1 percent,” the report said. “A far cry from job conditions in 2023. The 2023 unemployment rate in Salt Lake County was 2.57 percent, the second-lowest annual estimate ever; only 2022 was lower.”

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate is expected to range from 6 percent to 6.5 percent this year. By 2025, it will dip into the 5.5 percent to 6 percent range.

While the housing market will benefit in 2024 from lower mortgage rates and increased listings, affordability will continue to be an offsetting factor preventing a sales recovery to the pre-pandemic levels of roughly 18,000 annual sales in Salt Lake County (2016-20).

Established in 1917, the Salt Lake Board of Realtors promotes homeownership and protecting private property rights. It empowers its members to better serve the public by providing continuing education, advocacy and a professional code of ethics.