Park City: the best real-estate buys.

• Author: Rogers, Kristen
• Position: Utah

PARK CITY

The Best Real-Estate Buys

"The announcement that Utah was not chosen as the site of the 1998 Olympics seems to have kicked loose a logjam in real estate," says Tom Calder, a real estate agent in Coldwell Banker's Park City office. Both buyers and sellers who had been waiting to see what would happen, finally took action after the June 15 announcement. "I've been swamped," says Calder.

Maybe sellers who were hoping to add 10 to 15 percent to the price of their properties were disappointed when the Games went to Japan, but the bursting of the Olympic bubble hasn't been the dominant force in the Park City market. Not surprisingly, when the war and recession hit, sales fizzled. Yet as of July 8, total sales volume year-to-date was down only 9.6 percent from last year, according to Board of Realtors president Richard Dudley. But that statistic largely reflects the sluggish first two months of the year. The market has pulled out of the war/recession doldrums. Since mid-February, the real-estate market is largely back to "normal"--at least if last year's record-breaking sales volume can be considered normal.

This year, for the first time ever, single-family home sales in Park City have exceeded condominium sales. Yet condominium sales seem to be still alive and well, according to Dudley. "The sales are nothing outrageous--we're not burning up the tracks--but we're a long way from suffering." Deer Valley sales are "running even" with last year, and condo sales in Park Meadows and outlying areas are up. Condominium sales as a whole, however, are down 24 percent, largely due to the "resort" category of condos. "There just isn't that much for sale in the area around the resort," Dudley says.

Bargains To Watch For

But the market is always changing. "There are always good opportunities. You simply have to shift with the market. The good buys are where there is an excess of product on the market. These days you can find people willing to nearly give away condos."

In Calder's opinion, one of the current best buys in Park City is condominiums under $80,000. "They're rare, but if you can find one and invest a small down payment, Park City's high rents can cover the monthly payments."

It helps, of course, that Utah's economy is the best it's been since the 1970s. Max Greenhalgh of Wardley's Better Homes and Gardens comments, "A lot of the buying I'm seeing, especially outside the Park City limits, is by Salt Lake folks--and that's due to the great...