• Home
• About
• Properties For Sale By City
  • Atherton
  • Los Altos
  • Menlo Park
  • Mountain View
  • Palo Alto
  • Other Cities
• Housing Price Trends

Subscribe

Salt Lake Real Estate Investing: Three zip codes for three income levels

Note to regular readers of Kevin’s 3 Oceans real estate blog:

Today, as part of the Yankee Blog Swap, Kevin swapped blogs with Nigel Swaby from the Salt Lake Real Estate Blog.

Kevin’s post is over here…

while Nigel’s follows below. He provides an introduction to the Salt Lake City market from an investment standpoint. Looking for properties less expensive than here in California…with cash flow to boot? Let’s see what Nigel has to say.
Without further ado…heeeeere’s Nigel!

—————————–

Over the past three months, I’ve seen posts on various boards talking about the Salt Lake real estate market. Since Salt Lake has seen so much appreciation in the past year, many people from out of state have been interested in moving here because of the many employment choices. Investors have also looked to Salt Lake because homes are priced fairly reasonable and the market is still moving at a reasonable pace.

Since this post is part of the first annual “Yankee Blog Swap,” I thought I would share a little about the Salt Lake market and give you three zip codes I believe have a ton of potential.

About Salt Lake City

Salt Lake is a beautiful city, nestled in a valley between the Wasatch Mountains on the east and the Oquirrh Mountains on the west. The capitol building is perched high to the north. In fact, building restrictions prevent any building that would block the view. As a result, the city is spread out, flat and wide. To the east, homes have been built all the way up the foothills. To the west, homes are going up on old farmland. One of the state’s major employers, Kennecott Copper has repurposed old company land and built new developments. Homes have been built all the way up the southern edge of the city that separates the city of Draper from Utah County.

Like any city, there are “undesirable” areas of town. Sometimes an area is deemed undesirable because of crime and higher instances of poverty. Salt Lake isn’t like some cities in the country where an entire area is written off. Even in the worst areas, there are pockets of desirability. In general, the East side is considered to be the most desirable area of town, but there has been a lot of development in western areas like West Jordan, South Jordan and Herriman.

Areas like Glendale, Rose Park, Magna, West Valley and Kearns are not the first choice for people buying houses. On the other hand, The Avenues, Sugarhouse, Liberty Park, Holladay and Olympus Cove areas are highly desirable and though values hold up, aren’t necessarily all “rich areas.” Like I said earlier, Salt Lake is beautiful. If you’re on the side of the mountain, you get wonderful valley views. If you’re in the valley, you get stunning mountain views. Overall, this is a great place to live.

Three areas to buy/invest

There are three zip codes I think are worth taking a closer look at if you’re considering buying a home in Salt Lake.

84115

This is an older part of Salt Lake, near State St. The cities of Salt Lake and South Salt Lake are in this zip code. In the third quarter, appreciation in this zip code was 16.4% with a median sales price of $162,900. This area is starting to be redeveloped and I consider it to be a “sleeper” area for investors. Disadvantages to the area include smaller, older homes and small lot sizes (.10 -). As of this writing, there are 90 homes available, the lowest price is $105,000, the highest being $329,000. For investors, the deals won’t be found on the MLS, but need to be sought out.

84121

This area is completely hit or miss when it comes to investment potential. There is a huge mixture of types and ages of homes. In the third quarter, this zip code appreciated 14.6% and the median sales price was $327,250. The towns in this zip code include Cottonwood Heights and a part of Midvale. I like this area because of the mixture of homes, easy freeway access and lots of shopping. Houses are typically on bigger lots (.20 +). Disadvantages include, busy main streets, too much traffic next to that good shopping and possibly having a freeway next to your house. There are investment opportunities here mainly through estate type sales as older people move or pass on. It’s also a good place to live with big yards for families and good schools. The area is fairly reasonably priced as well. The lowest priced house currently available is $219,900 with $6.5 million being the top end. There are 190 homes on the MLS in this zip code.

84124

The area I like the most in the valley is Olympus Cove…because it has a full view of the valley. The Cove is not the only area with gorgeous valley views and it’s not the only area of the zip code. 84124 also contains Holladay and Millcreek Township. The Olympus Cove houses are on the top of the financial spectrum. I’ll share 84124 numbers here, but they are not reflective of the Cove. Third quarter appreciation was only 3%, but that was after a 36.2% increase in the 2^nd quarter. The median sales price was $310,000. There aren’t too many disadvantages to living in Olympus Cove, but there are still some. First, the steep winding roads at the base of the mountains are difficult to navigate in the winter. There are quite a few older homes up there that have flat, tar and gravel roofs…an undesirable feature. Price is the third disadvantage. Olympus Cove homes are some of the most expensive in the valley. If you can get into that neighborhood for under $400k, you’ve probably found a good deal. For investors, there are some deals to be had through estate type sales, but the price points are going to be prohibitive. For people who want to live in Salt Lake, this is the pinnacle, both literally and figuratively. There are currently 84 homes for sale in this zip code with $227,800 being the lowest price and $6.9 million being the highest. The bulk of homes in this zip code are not in Olympus Cove, but you can safely bet that $6.9 million mansion is.

That’s my time in this first ever Yankee Blog Swap. Thanks Mary at RSSPieces for setting this up and to Kevin for allowing me to post on this blog.

I leave you with a couple resources if you’re thinking about buying a home in Salt Lake for investment, a vacation home or just to live:

• Salt Lake home values
• Wasatch Front MLS – for consumers
• Salt Lake Real Estate Blog

—————–

Other participants in the Yankee blog swap:

Transparent Real Estate’s Pat Kitano vs. Zillow Blog’s Drew Meyers

RSS Pieces’ Mary McKnight vs. Future of Real Estate Marketing’s Joel Burslem

St Paul Real Estate Blog’s Teresa Boardman vs. Phoenix Real Estate Guy’s Jay Thompson

3 Ocean Real Estate’s Kevin Boer vs. SLC Real Estate’s Nigel Swaby

Issaquah Undressed’s Larry Cragun vs. Maury Properties’ Andrew Maury

Chicago Home Weblog’s Geno Petro vs. NY Houses 4 Sales’ Christine Forgione

Phoenix Arizona Real Estate Blog’s Jonathan Dalton vs. Real Estate Snippets Bonnie Erickson

The boys of Sellsius vs. Real Estate Tomato’s Jim Cronin

ML Podcast’s Michael Price vs. FamousAgents.com’s Elise Wright

My Tech Opinion’s Reggie Nicolay vs. Ubertor’s Steve Jagger

Redfin’s Glenn Kelman vs Rain City’s Ardell DellaLoggia

CondoDomain’s Anthony Longo vs. miOaklandCounty’s Maureen Francis

The San Diego Home Blog’s Kris Berg vs. Urban Dig’s Noah Rosenblatt

The Property Monger’s Jon Ernest vs. XBroker’s Jeff Corbett

Realty Blogging’s Richard Nacht vs. The Mortgage Reports’ Dan Green

Christian Real Estate Network’s Justin Smith vs. Wanna Network’s Tony Senna

Sacramento Voice’s Gena Riede vs. Max Sell’s Brad Nix

Tags: Real estate, Yankee Blog Swap

Comments

• Chat

• Subscribe

  Subscribe in a reader

• Market Stats

Copyright © 2008 3 Oceans Real Estate · Revolution News theme by Brian Gardner · San Francisco Commercial Real Estate · Log in