Guide · January 18, 2024 · 3 min read
Salt Lake City real estate, in numbers.
A snapshot of the Salt Lake City market as we wrote it down in January 2024. Market data ages fast, so read these as that moment, not as today's prices.
This is the Salt Lake City real estate market as the data described it in January 2024, gathered from Redfin's market page and the roundups it anchors. Two warnings before the numbers. First, they age: a market snapshot is a photograph, not a forecast. Second, medians describe the middle of the market, and the middle is exactly where the houses we buy usually are not, so treat these as context rather than a price estimate for any particular house.
Prices, as of late 2023
- Median sale price: roughly $520,000, about 5.5% lower than a year earlier
- Median price per square foot: about $307, down 2.2% year over year
- October 2023's recorded median: $504,244, against a median list price of $570,000
- Salt Lake City's median sale price sat about 28% above the national figure
The gap between the list median and the sale median is the sentence sellers should read twice: houses were being listed above what they eventually brought.
Speed and competition
- A typical listing drew about two offers
- Homes sold for roughly 2% below list price on average
- Pending in around 36 days; the most competitive homes went in about 14
- 29.6% of sales closed over list price as of October 31, 2023, while 49.1% closed under it
- The median sale-to-list ratio was 0.998, list price almost exactly, on average
Days on market had risen by 17 days against the same period in 2022, which is what a market cooling from its 2021 fever looks like: still moving, but no longer forgiving of an ambitious list price.
Inventory and the forecast
- 3,191 active listings as of November 30, 2023, with 988 new listings that month
- Average home values had eased about 1.1% over the prior year
- The one-year forecast called for a 0.3% rise, which is a forecast of "flat"
- Mortgage rates had climbed through the third quarter of 2023, with the consensus expecting them to hold and then drift down
Taken together the data described a balanced market: neither the frenzy of 2021 nor a slump, with enough demand from Utah's job growth and thin housing supply to hold prices roughly level.
What it meant if you were selling
A balanced market punishes overpricing. With half of sales closing under list and a third of listings taking price cuts on the way to pending, the sellers who moved fast were the ones who priced against recent closed sales rather than against hope. Our guide on how to sell your house fast in Utah walks through that playbook, and the honest comparison covers when a listing is worth those 36-plus days and when it is not.
For a house in the fat middle of the market, clean and well located, a 36-day pending timeline is a real option and usually the better-netting one. The further a house sits from that middle, because of condition, tenants, title, or a deadline, the less those medians describe it, and the more a cash offer with a seven-day close becomes the relevant number instead. If you want that number for your own house, current rather than January 2024's, it costs one form.
Find out what your house is worth in cash. Free, and no strings.
One phone call, or one short form. You'll have a real number by this time tomorrow.
Tell us about the house
Where the house is, your name, and a number we can reach you on. We call back within one business day, and you're free to say no.