Wasatch Front Real Estate Podcast with Spencer Janke

Our Northern Utah market is expanding quickly, and there are a couple reasons why.  Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessAs you know, we’re experiencing exponential growth here in the valley. You’ve heard of Silicon Slopes, Building Salt Lake, and other major projects that are going online. Every time I think of the mountain plan, I can’t believe what’s going to be there in the next five to 10 years. It’s life-changing for all of us, which is why we’re experiencing this growth. People are arriving in droves because our economy continues to expand. When the population of an area grown and its economy expands, some developers get visions of grandeur. I even came across an article recently about a group of developers who want to build an island city in the middle of Salt Lake. “We know where you should buy so your home can experience the highest appreciation. ”The point is, our team keeps our thumb on all these awesome long-term projects coming online. We know what’s happening and what to expect, which means we know where you should buy so you can be next to these projects that will increase your home’s value. If you have any questions about our economy and where things are going to expand, explore our website http://utahcribs.com—we have all the latest updates on all the latest events happening. If you’re thinking of buying or selling a home soon, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’d love to help you.

The holidays are all about giving back. It’s almost time for our Sub for Santa event, so find out how you can help a family in need this Christmas.  Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessThis Christmas, help a family in need. Every year, we do a Sub for Santa event. This event has grown each year thanks to your support. “Help a family in need have a great holiday season. ”If you know a family who is struggling this time of year, please reach out to us to nominate them. We’re also looking for donations to give these families a great holiday season. We’ve been able to help more and more families each year, and this year, we hope to pass our record of 10 families!You can learn more details here. Please reach out to us with your nomination or donation. We look forward to hearing from you. Happy Holidays!

Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessToday we want to show you how to safely remove an old refrigerator from the third floor of your investment property. It is absolutely crucial that your mannequin friend tests the fall first. “Find a friend to test the landing. ”If you don’t plan on getting new windows, you can probably open one before you throw your friend out and achieve a similar effect. Then, you are good to deposit the fridge.Watch the video above for a complete demonstration. Although our mannequin didn’t quite make it, he did at least break the fridge’s fall. If you have any other questions about renovating an investment property or real estate in general, just give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessIt’s always important to thoroughly examine a home. Of course, the inspector will let you know if there are any underlying issues with the property, but it doesn’t hurt to pay attention to the details during a showing. Check out our short video to see what not to do when looking at a home. For starters, let’s take a look at the bathroom. Although bathrooms are a major selling point for buyers, it’s a little unconventional to actually use the restroom during a showing. Secondly, home warranties also play an important role in homeownership. Damage happens. But sometimes, we aren’t exactly sure how. Sometimes we come across a home that leaves us wondering: “What happened here?” What do people do in their houses to cause such significant, and strange, damage?For instance: How can a wall have not one, but two holes big enough for us to fit our heads through to the other side? As you’ll see in the short video above, a bowling ball may have been the culprit. “Be careful in there. ”Usually, damage to drywall isn’t quite this bad. It also isn’t typically caused by a bowling ball. But, regardless of how damage happens, it is always a possibility. Damaged drywall or broken appliances can be a pain if you’re stuck without coverage. This is exactly why you should ask yourself, “Is a home warranty worth it?”Personally, we think it probably is. Whether you are looking for a turnkey property or more of a fixer-upper (or you’re interested in a bathroom remodel project), give us a call or send us an email. We would be happy to help you!

Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessMany of you may have already heard about the Fed’s recent quarterly meeting where they decided not to raise the benchmark rate.There is always a little bit of confusion about the difference between interest rates and the benchmark rate, so I want to clear that up. These two rates are not the same thing.The benchmark rate is basically the rate at which banks can borrow money. This means the affordability for banks borrowing money is still very, very low, and it also indicates that interest rates are likely to stay the same for now, as well.Many officials on the Fed board have said that they plan to do a third raise on the benchmark rate in the future, but this likely won’t be relevant until December.“These two rates are not the same thing. ”As for now, we’re still seeing historic lows for interest rates. In fact, it’s likely that we’ll never see rates these low again. As a consumer, you should definitely take advantage of this.If you’re ready to make a real estate transaction, my team and I would love to help. We can give you some great referrals.If you have any other questions or would like more information, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

What do real estate agents do when you’re not home?Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessFor today’s short video, we just wanted to show you what real estate agents do when you are not in your home.Any questions? Feel free to give us call.If you or someone you know is looking to buy or sell a home, please reach out to us. We’d be happy to help!

Appreciation in Salt Lake County is a seasonal trend. Today, let’s take a look at the numbers and what they mean for buyers.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessWhenever April 1st rolls around, we typically predict what the second quarter of appreciation is going to do in Salt Lake County. This is because we usually see the most appreciation happen in the second quarter.In our area, appreciation is very much a seasonal thing—not a linear trend. Instead, things occur in booms and busts.So, looking back, what happened this year? Well before we get to that, let’s take a look further back.In early 2012, when the recession ended, Salt Lake County’s median sales price went up 12%—and did so again in 2013. 2014 saw a 4% increase, and 2015 had an increase of 12.97%.Just last year, the median sales price rose 6.2%. Looking at these numbers, we can see that we’ve had five solid years of second-quarter appreciation. In 2012, the median sales price for a single-family home was $190,000. Today, that median price is $330,000.So in just five years and one quarter, homes have appreciated almost $75,000. Does this mean we’ve created another bubble? Most experts say no. Salt Lake actually has a 40-year history of having median prices double between every eight to 12 years.“Being an informed, educated buyer is everything ”Real estate is a long-term game. Being an informed, educated buyer is everything—which is why we try to help you be just that.If you had bought a home on April 1st, for example, the median price was $305,000. But, if you waited the just 90 days until July, you’d find that the median price has risen to $330,000.These real numbers show that even just a three-month wait could very well have cost you $8,000 a month. Some of the things my team often hears from buyers include: “I have time,” or “I’m waiting for the right home.” But, as we’ve seen here, waiting could cost you. Even if you are waiting because you want to save more money, the market appreciation rate is outpacing the amount you could be saving.The best deal you could get in this market is often the deal you could get today.We want to help you understand your options by looking at things like area and price range. Also, homes are moving fast. Low inventory has lead to high demand—which is another reason not to wait.Ultimately, we’d be happy to help you make an educated real estate decision based on the numbers for your area and price range.If you would like more information or have any other questions, feel free to give me a call or send me an email. I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Each member on our team is as important as the last. Yes, that includes Captain Crib as well.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessWhat makes the Utah Cribs team so special? One thing we have going for us is a full team who can assist you with all of your real estate needs.We're trying to break down the traditional walls of real estate, however, we need a little help. That’s why we have Captain Crib! Check him out in action in the video above.“Captain Crib is here to save the day. ”Our entire team (including Captain Crib) is ready to serve you or anyone you know when it comes time to buy or sell a home. If you have any questions for us or could use our assistance, give us a call or send us an email. We look forward to hearing from you.

Prices for single-family homes rose significantly this May compared to May 2016, and they’re not staying on the market long, either.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessHow did our Salt Lake County market do this May compared to May 2016? A few key statistics tell the tale.The median price of single-family homes rose 9.1% from $305,000 to $332,800. That’s a significant jump, and it can be frustrating if you’ve been looking for a home for awhile because it essentially means you’ve lost money waiting for the right house to come along. In fact, if you look at the last May that was part of the recession—May 2011—the median price for single-family homes was $200,000. That means in six years, the median price for single-family homes has risen 66.4%.Another amazing thing about our current market is that 592 single-family homes have closed so far this month, and the average days on market for those homes was only seven days. “Shopping on Trulia and Zillow won’t get you a good house in our market. ”What do these numbers mean? If you’re a buyer, don’t even think about starting your home search until you’re pre-qualified and underwritten, you have your ducks in a row as far as lending goes, and you have a good agent going to bat for you. Lastly, remember to be aggressive, especially if you’re looking under the $600,000 price range.If you have any questions about our market or are looking to buy or sell a home, don’t hesitate to give us a call or shoot us an email. We’d be glad to help.

You remember the classic song, “Row, row, row your boat.” Now check out the Utah Cribs official remix.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessAll of us have dreams. Most of us have more than one. Is homeownership one of yours? For many of us, it is, and we’d like to help you achieve that dream.“We hope you enjoy this little tune. ”Here at Utah Cribs, we have a group of dedicated professionals who want to help make the next move in your life as easy and stress-free as possible. This involves a lot of hard work, but we’d be lying if we said we didn’t take a little bit of time to goof off every now and then.A perfect example is the video above. We hope you enjoy the Utah Cribs remix of “Row, row, row your boat” titled “Buy, buy, buy a home.” The next time you or anyone you know is ready to buy, buy, buy, give us a call or send us an email. We are always here to help.

In this market, you have to act quickly to get the property you want. As you’ll see, sometimes you just can’t act fast enough.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessI’m here today with a couple of investors in the heart of Sugar House. We’re looking at a property in this single-family neighborhood that is unique to the area. It’s actually a triplex, and a great property for any investor looking to build wealth through real estate.As far as rent goes, this property is in the perfect area to capture a top rental rate. It’s just east of Westminster College, a perfect place to rent out to students.Time is of the essence because our spring market in Utah has been absolutely insane. Pretty much every single property is seeing multiple offers and homes are selling as quickly as you can tell people about them.“Time is of the essence. ”Which is exactly what happened with this property. Check out my explosive reaction to finding out this property went under contract as soon as I brought my investors in the video above.In all seriousness, if you have any questions for me about the real estate market or if you’re looking to invest in it yourself, give me a call or send me an email. I would love to hear from you.

Home values and appreciation have been a hot topic for us lately. Today I want to show an example of just how much equity you can gain through appreciation at the current market rate.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessWe’re always talking numbers, and I hope you’re not sick of me yet! Today I wanted to share a flier that was sent to me recently about appreciation in our market. It shows 6.1% appreciation over five years.We fear that many people think this is fake money or think that these numbers didn’t really happen. The graph in the video above shows how a $340,000 home would appreciate if it increased by 6.1% over five years. In the fifth year, the home would be worth $470,592.So I took this rate and applied it to the median home price from five years ago in February, which was $180,000. As of last summer, median prices hit $275,000, which is a five-year change of nearly 35%. If you apply this to the $340,000 house from the graph above, you can see that it was almost exactly right in its prediction.In the last five years, homes have in fact appreciated 6.1% on average based on median price in Salt Lake County. That’s more than $120,000 in five years!“I don’t think values will double over the next decade, but that’s the path we’re on. ”It’s the same over the long term, as well. The home neighboring the house I grew up in increased in value 4.5 times over in a 34-year time frame leading up to this year.I don’t think houses will double in value over the next 10 to 12 years, but then again, that’s what has happened the last four straight decades in Salt Lake County, and it’s the same path the market has been on for the last five years.We’re not pushy salesmen, but we want you to know that in a rapidly appreciating market, the best deal you will get will be on the house that you buy today. I’ve seen too many heartbroken young buyers who wait around to buy a home and realize that their biggest mistake was not buying a home when they were qualified and ready.If you have any questions about the Salt Lake market, give me a call or send me an email. I’d love to hear from you.

It's a crazy time in the Salt Lake real estate market, so we wanted to give you some numbers that tell the real story of home prices and appreciation.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessRecently, we talked about a few economists' take on the Salt Lake market. Today we're back to give you some more crazy numbers that are a little bit different and more interesting and paint a more complete picture of what’s really happening in our market.For starters, let me say that it perturbs me a little bit when people talk about the 'spring market' and yearlong statistics because we're a seasonal market. If you look at our market's appreciation on a graph, you won't see the median price grow consistently in a linear way. For example, appreciation in Salt Lake last year was 8.3%, but prices peaked in June. Starting in July, prices declined all the way through to December. This means that in the spring rush, we saw prices skyrocket over 13% and then retract throughout the rest of the year.Last year at the peak pricing time in June, we hit a median price of $275,000, and as of the end of January 2017, the median price is back up to $275,000. So what might we see over the next five months?“If this appreciation continues, homes will get up to $10,000 pricier every 30 days. ”As many expert economists predict, we'll see 5% to 7% appreciation this year. However, based on what happened last year, it's extremely likely that we could see double-digit appreciation between now and the Fourth of July. That's crazy! That would mean the market is appreciating 2% per month.I don't want to push you to hurry and buy a home, but if this trend continues, a home that's $300,000 today could be valued at $306,000 by March 15. Every month, its price could go up $6,000 to $10,000.Too many buyers sit on the sidelines 'waiting for the right house to come along.' In an appreciating market, that's a real estate fallacy. The same goes for buyers who are 'waiting for a killer deal.' If you're looking at houses in the $750,000 and under price range, you can't wait for a killer deal because the best house you'll get is the house you buy the soonest in this strong seller's market.I know this can be frustrating, but we want you to be educated with the real numbers, not some sales pitch. If you have any other questions about our market or you're looking to buy or sell a home, give us a call or send us an email today. Don't wait any longer!

Every year, a bunch of us Realtors get together at the Forecast Breakfast. There, Dr. James Wood, an economist who is also an expert on our market, shared his predictions for 2017.Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessI recently had the pleasure of attending the Forecast Breakfast. Every year, a bunch of us Realtors get together, including Lawrence Yun from the National Association of Realtors.Dr. James Wood, one of the foremost economists at the University of Utah, shared his predictions fro the 2017 Utah residential real estate market. He also went over a few important statistics from last year.We always work hard to give you this kind of information, but sometimes it helps to hear from the experts. Here are some of the highlights from the breakfast:Dr. Wood said that, for the first time in 40 years, the rise of households in Utah exceeds the number of new housing units. In other words, demand is really outpacing supply.Dr. Wood also told us that apartment vacancy rates are at the lowest levels they have been in decades despite the historic boom in new construction apartments. Since 2012, we’ve added 20,000 apartment units in Salt Lake, but demand is still outpacing the supply.With that in mind, Dr. Wood told us, “2016 was the best year for the Salt Lake County housing market in a decade when it comes to the number of sales. In Salt Lake County, just over 13,600 sales occurred.” In 2009, the typical Salt Lake area property sat on the market for an average of 80 days. In 2016, that number dropped to 13 days, which is absolute insanity!“With market conditions like these, you need to be ready to make your move. ”When it comes to his predictions for 2017, here is a direct quote from Dr. Wood: “We can expect another 5% to 7% increase in pricing . . . These fundamentals combined with exceptionally strong demand, as well evidenced by record low days on market, will push the median sales price of single- family homes to the $310,000 to $315,000 range. It’s currently sitting at $295,000. Condominium sales should be even stronger.”Dr. Wood continued by saying, “Overall, it’s going to be a tight market for buyers and renters. Prices are not going to come down, interest rates are not going to come down, and availability is not going to improve much. You just have to pull the trigger.”A lot of the time when we present statistics proving that now is a good time to buy or sell, I do get comments from people who say, “Of course you’d say that; you’re a real estate salesperson!” However, everything I just told you is a direct quote from Dr. James Wood, a foremost economist on our local market.He is really saying exactly what we would say. If you combine rapidly increasing prices with rising interest rates and super tight inventory, the best deal you will get on a house is on the house you buy the quickest. In Dr. Wood’s words, “You just have to pull the trigger.”I know that everyone likes to shop around and wait for the right house, but you simply cannot do that in our current market. If you have any other questions about our market or would like to learn more about the buying or selling process, just give me a call or send me an email. I would be happy to help you.

In Salt Lake City, sales are increasing and homes are getting more expensive. Does this mean you should buy now or wait?Selling your Wasatch Front home? Get a free home value reportBuying a Wasatch Front home? Click here for full MLS accessIs now a good time to buy a home in Salt Lake City? As 2016 comes to an end, I thought I’d share with you a few stats from the residential real estate market to help answer that question.It’s certainly been a crazy year. We’ve continued a four-year trend of rapid appreciation, and 2016 didn’t disappoint. In Salt Lake County, the market bottomed out in 2012 as far as median price goes, but since then we’ve seen a 38% appreciation. In fact, the NAR predicted that our county’s median price would grow 4.2% this year. They were wrong—we nearly doubled that. The final numbers through December haven’t been released, but it looks like the median price will see a rise of about 8%.According to Zumper, Salt Lake City was the 53rd fastest growing market for rental prices, which puts us in the middle of the pack. We saw a 2-bedroom apartment, on average, increase in rental price by 12%. Around the nation, rental rates are slowing down as far as price appreciation goes, but they’re getting more expensive in Salt Lake City.“Buying now will get you the cheapest possible price. ”As we’ve been saying for a while now, interest rates are going to go up. In fact, they’ve already gone up. Earlier this year, the national average rate for a 30-year fixed loan was around 3.5%. For most of our clients closing now, that rate is closer to 4%.Sales were strong heading into the year, and they’re still increasing. In October, for example, there were 1,077 single-family home sales, which was a 2.6% increase over October 2015. In October 2016, the median price was $298,000, which is up 10.4% over October 2015.So, should you buy now? If you care about money, then yes. Homes are getting more and more expensive. I do expect to see a softening in the next two to three years, but we won’t see an extreme downturn by any means. If you factor price appreciation coupled with interest rates, especially if you’re renting, waiting for that possible softening is not worth your time. If you have any questions about our market or you’re thinking of buying or selling, feel free to reach out to me. I’d be glad to help!