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A Real Estate Market Like No Other July makes history with the highest number of home sales in a single month. By Dave Anderton More jobs, more people, more growth. It’s a recipe for more home sales. And July’s sales numbers prove it. Across Salt Lake County in July, there were more than 2,100 homes sold, 15 percent higher than July 2019. July marks the first time monthly sales in Salt Lake County surpassed 2,000 closings since the MLS began keeping records. Historically, July is a slower month, according to Alicia Holdaway, president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors®. Not this time. In July 2020, home sales were nearly 25 percent higher than the average number of July sales from 2015 through 2019. The pandemic pushed the spring home buying season to summer. And potential home buyers, who typically take vacations in summer, had nowhere to go. “I think as long as mortgage interest rates stay at
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these historical lows the pace is going to continue,” Holdaway said. “When it comes to the pandemic, our state has done a really good job balancing safety and the economy. Ultimately, we haven’t sacrificed one for the other.” A recent article in USA Today listed Utah as the No. 1 economy of all states, based on four measures: economic growth, employment growth, the poverty rate, and the unemployment rate. “Utah’s economy ranks as the best of any state,” the article said. “At a time when COVID-19 has sent unemployment soaring into the double digits across much of the country, Utah’s monthly jobless rate stands at 5.1 percent, less than half the 11.1 percent national unemployment rate for June.” Angie Nelden, former president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors® and an agent with Summit Sotheby’s International Realty, said she is seeing more out-of-state buyers move to Utah. “I’m the
