Home sales dipped in April and May
One of biggest Builders in Utah(Edge homes) reported their 1000 sales per year in the middle of June with total 1600 sales for 2020. It shows that during first part of the year we can see more sales with slowing down for a second part. Compare to year of 2019, that had 1100 sales total it's 45% more than year before. However, it is just a piece of statistics of one builder among dozens in utah.
thousands of renters in Utah, many of whom were already spending half or more of their incomes on housing
Statewide, the median housing costs increased from $944 to $1,037 for renters.
(Lee, Jasen. “Housing Affordability in Utah Entering ‘Perilous Territory,’ Study Says.” Deseret News, 10 Dec. 2020, www.deseret.com/utah/2020/12/9/22165836/housing-affordability-in-utah-entering-perilous-territory-study-says.)
after a decade that saw both home prices and average rents grow far faster than median incomes.
Indeed. I went to the Social security site and searched for average Wage Data. for last decade numbers seem interesting: 2011 average wage was around $41,300 and 2019 is $51,900. That gives us about a 25.6% raise. But the same time researchers say that last year the median sales price of single-family homes in Salt Lake County was $380,000, which was a 91% increase from 2011.
Combined with demand spurred by lower interest rates, the deficit in housing supplies “will drive prices up, which exacerbates the housing affordability problem
Also interesting bondage I did not think about before. In 2018 apr rate was 4.54% per https://www.statista.com/statistics/187661/rates-on-conventional-30-year-fixed-mortgages-in-the-us/ and now it is 2.5%. Seems that smaller rate encourage people to buy a house.
Sales then came roaring back in June in a dramatic uptick that has left supplies of available homes on the Wasatch Front “really dangerously low,”
At 2020 I was working as part of architectural team at EDGEhomes- one of the biggest residential construction builders in Utah. Per amount of requests from sales for site plans i personally can say that sales went up in April. at least twice more requests compare to spring of 2019.