We've been saying for the past month or so that we're not particularly worried about the end of the federal homebuyers tax credits. We also weren't particularly concerned when the Federal Reserve said it would cease purchasing mortgage-backed securities. After all, the only way to discover if a market is truly healthy and viable is to stop subsidizing it.

It's still early to render a verdict, but so far so good. People recognize that the combination of low rates and lower home prices represent a great opportunity, while many shoppers who failed to find a home to qualify for the tax credit remain undeterred and, just as important, rational – understanding the go-go days of the early 2000s are over. And that's a good thing. The market of that era was driven more by speculation and less by fundamentals. And though it was highly remunerative for many of us, we see how it turned out.

In housing, slow and steady wins the race, which is why we continue to advise our clients that today's market offers good fundamentally sound deals that can be financed at good economically advantageous interest rates. Sounds like a win-win deal to us.

 

 

 

   

Median home prices are on the rise in most metropolitan areas surveyed by the National Association of Realtors.

In fact, 91 out of 152 U.S. metropolitan statistical areas showed higher median existing single-family home prices in this year's first quarter compared to the first quarter of 2009.

However, Salt Lake City ranked in the bottom 10 areas with the largest home price declines. In Salt Lake, home prices fell 11.4 percent  in the first quarter compared to the same quarter last year.

Salt Lake's falling home prices will continue throughout 2010, but should stabilize in 2011, according to a report commissioned earlier this year by the Salt Lake Board of Realtors and conducted by Jim Wood, director of the University of Utah's Business of Economic and Business Research. In that report, Wood said that Salt Lake home prices would fall another 3 percent to 5 percent in 2010.

The falling home prices have attracted more first-time buyers and have led to more home sales. In the six months ended March 31, single-family home sales in Salt Lake County increased 33 percent (4,181 home sales compared to 3,151 sales a year ago).

And according to Wood, single-family home sales could reach as many as 10,000 units sold in 2010 in Salt Lake County, a nearly 10 percent increase compared to home sales in 2009.