Trela Bird's (merbtrelab) Blog

Ivory homes are building a new over 55's community located in South Jordan's Daybreak development. The community just like Daybreak itself will be big, in fact when finished it will be the largest Active Adult Community in Utah. Garden Park will feature approximately 200 single level living homes...

There is now a new Utah State incentive of $6000 dollars for home buyers, but it comes with limitations and in my opinion a major drawback. Unlike other incentives introduced at the federal level, the State incentive is limited to new construction homes. Now this is great if you are looking to bu...

In a recent study by the Utah Association of Realtors, when people were asked what are the top three challenges in the Utah Housing Market, the number one response was ‘lack of housing affordability'. Second was the ‘current state of the economy' and third was ‘difficulty in getting a loan'. The ...

I know that the real estate market is not exactly booming in the U.S., but I was reading an article the other day about the market in the U.K. that really shocked me. Apparently, mortgage loans dropped 95% between July 2008, and August 2008. That's not a misprint, they dropped 95% in a single mon...

The Salt Lake Board of Realtors has questioned a recent report by RealtyTrac, which reported the home foreclosure rate in Utah increasing 294% in July 2008 (compared to July 2007). The report ranked Utah as the 9th largest foreclosure rate in the U.S. However, it is believed that the methodology ...

We recently had an appraisal done on an existing home in a subdivision that still has new homes being constructed. When speaking to the appraiser, I mentioned that the builder had a recent sale of exactly the same model of home in the same subdivision that was not on the MLS. In the past, apprais...

I visited the new model home village for Daybreak North Shore on Friday.  Looking around it was clear that Kennecott (the developer) have changed direction from their original plans, with far more high-density cheaper homes on offer. This is reflected in their latest marketing material showing th...

The third phase of the Daybreak development is due to open next week. North Shore (named because of its location to the north of the lake) will introduce a new builder, Ivory Homes. There is a Realtor open day on the 26th of June, a Daybreak residence day on the 27th and the grand public opening ...

Until recently, if you were in a declining market Fannie Mae would only loan you 90% of a homes purchase price. This made it difficult for first time buyers, who struggled to come up with a 10% down payment. On June 1st this policy was changed, and you can now get a loan for 95% loan-to-value. Th...

Last month 848 single family homes were sold in Salt Lake County, that's an increase of 5.47% over the previous months total. The number of homes sold has now increased in each of the last four months, going from 507 in Jan to 848 in May.  My question is it too early to say that the market has bo...