It’s a sign of the times for the downtown Salt Lake City area’s once-booming condo market. It was different a year ago when buyers in downtown Salt Lake City signed contracts to buy more than half of the available units at The Metro.
Prices for the meantime are doing good. As for sales, it is facing a downturn and if this is the case, prices could follow. Developers of The Metro, 350 S. 200 East, are lucky in that the market’s downturn comes when only 16 of the building’s 117 units are not under contract.
According to Andrew Pratt, director of sales and marketing for the project, their timing was in their favor since in the condo market, timing is everything. In recent years, the market has improved. Utah’s strong job and population growth have added to the momentum. Last summer though, tighter lending standards put in place after subprime lending crisis have taken their toll.
Several projects for inventories of properties for sale are now on hold and it is causing the condo market to slow down. According to real estate agent Babs De Lay, lenders aren’t willing to finance anything at the moment and that is why inventory for the next few years will be important.
The 30-unit Armista condominium project at 555 E. 100 South was sold out in about six months, she said. Units were priced at just under $170,000. Anything that is under $175,000 is selling very fast.
Andre Ausseresses of Salt Lake City, noticed the lack of sales activity in recent months. The big worry now is that the remaining condos in The Metro get sold. But then, the developer is not able to cut prices below what owner like Ausseresses and other buyers committed to pay earlier.
Even this is the scenario downtown, Ausseresses is still excited to move to the Metro for reasons like walking to work and other activities are all easy to do.
Instead of the Howa Capital that was originally planed Across downtown, along 300 West between 500 North and 600 North in January, the company is preparing for it’s construction for retail and office space of the Marmalade project.
Though it is a great market, people may need something more practical and inexpensive. “It’s just not a great business situation to start a condo project right now,” said Dru Damico. The company will probably have everything completed by 2010 if all goes well with financing.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is one big unknown in the downtown Salt Lake City condo market. It has yet to release details such as pricing of the approximately 700 condos and apartments it plans to build in its City Creek Center project in downtown Salt Lake City.
Utah real estate firm Cowboy Partners will start construction on its 100 condos around 2010. “The market as a whole is clearly different than it was two years ago. There are reasons to be cautious right now”, said Dan Lofgren.
Even when there is a fast turn of events on real estate market in the Salt Lake area, commercial and residential real estate are slowing down. The condo market, said developer Craig Mecham, is one of his greatest concerns.
