As 2024 ends, homebuyers in Utah continue to navigate a challenging real estate market characterized by high prices and elevated interest rates.Brian Thompson, a new homeowner, experienced these challenges firsthand.'Buying a house these days, it's a lot harder than it used to be,' Thompson said.There are currently just over 13,400 homes for sale in Utah. However, amid this competitive landscape, Thompson recently made the big leap to buy a home.
'The home got put on the market on Thursday,” Thompson recalled. “By Friday, we had put an offer in and by Monday, there were six offers on the house.”The new homeowner says while there were numerous options available, many were 'way overpriced.'According to real estate giant Zillow, the current median home price in Utah stands at $517,823, marking a 1.4 percent increase this year.Although this is not an all-time high for the state, it represents a staggering increase of over $170,000 compared to December 2019, when the average home price was only $343,989.According to Zillow, the average time for homes to go from listing to pending status is just 29 days on Zillow’s website. 'Six offers in three days is kind of an intense amount of offers,' Thompson said.To stand out in the crowded housing market, Thompson crafted a personal letter to the sellers.'I told them how I was a teacher, and my wife works in education and her parents had worked in education, so that's kind of why they chose our offer out of the six,' he explained.Along with competition against other home buyers and varying home prices, prospective home buyers also have to worry about the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve has signaled that rates will largely remain unchanged into 2025.Despite these obstacles, Utahns like Thompson persist in their home-buying journeys, holding onto hope for relief in the future.'I don't know if we necessarily want prices to drop too much, because that's a downturn in the economy,” Thompson said