After several years of a nationwide economic recession, with Utah’s residential real estate market never rising quite as high as the rest of the country, Utah has now seen what experts believe is the bottom of the downturn. New home sales in Utah are predicted to rise significantly over the next year because of the depressed prices and the still strong employment rate.Utah’s unemployment rate hovers at 6.8% compared to almost 10% nationwide (see link to Utah Jobs data at end of article). Beginning in October of 2008 and continuing into 2009, the US entered the fastest free fall in job losses since the Great Depression. Now that the current Utah employment data can be compared to that free fall, we can see that employment has begun to improve over the past several months. Because we do not see a continued incline in unemployment, experts are saying that Utah has begun to moderate.
Construction was hit most heavily during this downturn with Utah seeing all the constructions jobs created since the 2004 Townhomes For Sale in Farmington Utah
boom almost completely evaporate. Many Utah homebuilders cut workforce and scaled back new home building in Utah.
Foreclosures also skyrocketed in 2008 and through 2009 with Utah seeing a 96% increase in foreclosures from Q3 of 2008 to Q3 of 2009. Foreclosures are projected to continue to rise through 2012 at a much slower rate. Experts expect to see up to 69,383 total foreclosures by 2012 compared to the current 50,579 ( 18,804 new foreclosures yet to happen). These foreclosures have dramatically lowered home values, creating great opportunity for the steadily employed who may be looking to buy sometime soon.
