SLC ranked No. 1 in Forbes' 'Sizzling Housing Markets'

Enterprise, The, Nov 26, 2007

Salt Lake City was named No. 1 in Forbes.com's Ten Sizzling Housing Markets list, bucking the nationwide downward trend in real estate markets.

Salt Lake City had a one year increase of 21.9 percent in real estate value, with a median home price of $233,100, posting greater gains in home prices than any other metropolitan area in the country and putting it at the top of the list.

According to the study, Utah's real estate upturn is based on more people moving to the state to take advantage of a favorable job market as well as its "quality of life" factors and because home values did not increase during the "get-rich real estate frenzy" that affected most of the rest of the country for the past several years.

John Taylor, investment specialist at Commerce CRG, a unit of developer Cushman & Wakefield in Salt Lake City, said Utah has been more affordable than many other parts of the nation, but as property prices fall in the rest of the country and increase in Salt Lake City, the gap has closed slightly. In the second quarter of 2007, according to Forbes.com, the national median existing single-family home price was $223,800, down 1.5 percent from a year earlier. The median price in Salt Lake City increasedto $233,100.

Binghamton, N.Y., came in second with a one-year real estate value increase of 19.8 percent, followed by Salem, Ore., at 16.7 percent; Farmington, N.M., at 14 percent; Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton, Pa.-N.J., at 12.8 percent; Beaumont-Port Arthur, Texas, at 11.8 percent; Reading, Pa. at 11.2 percent; Glens Falls, N.Y. at 10.7 percent; Spokane, Wash., at 10.4 percent; and Cumberland, Md.-W.Va., at 9.3 percent.