Data collected by the board show 103 condo units were bought with cash in the first half of this year within an area of Salt Lake City bounded by 300 North, 1000 East, 900 South and 600 West.
Realtors offer several reasons. Strict rules governing Federal Housing Administration loans have made large numbers of condo units ineligible for low-down-payment insured mortgages. That has cut buyers off from a crucial source of low-cost mortgage money, keeping the condo market relatively anemic and giving cash buyers the upper hand in negotiations with sellers.
Interest rates and the stock market are factors, too. Yields on CDs, money-market accounts, Treasuries, savings accounts, checking accounts and other savings instruments have shrunk to almost zero. At the same time, stocks have become riskier and less certain to produce profits. Both trends have led many cash-rich investors to look at real estate, including the condo market.
In the area that Realtor Babs DeLay tracks, the average list price of condos on the market was $308,665, the average sale-pending price was $207,234, and the average completed-sale price was $209,517. Data accumulated by the Board of Realtors show the median price of condos sold in the first half of 2012 was $164,000, slightly lower than the median during the same time last year.
Dave Anderton, a spokesman for the Realtors group, said demand for condos is likely to push prices higher in a year or two. Salt Lake Tribune
