Here it is, the end of on hell of a year. There’s so much commentary out there about what went wrong in the world and this country I don’t need to add my two cents worth to the negativity. Instead, how about we venture into some year end house porn and see what the highest sales in real estate this year were!

Per the Wasatch Front MLS, the highest sale in Utah was in January in Park City of a 14,595 sq. ft home with 7BR/11BA and a four car garage on 5.76 acres in the White Pine Canyon subdivision. At a cash sales price of $27,875,000 it topped all records of $1,909 per square foot. Amenities inside included a fitness room with a morning bar, pickleball/basketball court, wellness massage room and high end finishes like an Onyx slab entry door and shinnoki oak wall finishes, and outside a covered outdoor BBQ kitchen and dining space, heated outdoor pool and hot tub, fully heated decks, walkways and driveway. It was listed by Engle & Volkers and sold by Summit Sotheby’s.  There were two other estates in the same subdivision that sold this year: 15,078 sq. ft w/ 8 BR/10 BA for $25,787,514 (over list) by Berkshire Hathaway and another for $26,600,000  also with around 15,000 sq. ft, 5 BR, 8 BA listed by Berkshire Hathaway and sold by Engel & Volkers. The other highest sale was at Marcella at Deer Valley East Village for $18,400,000, with 8000 sq. ft, 6BR/9BA, listed by Berkshire Hathaway and sold by Summit Sotheby’s.

The most expensive home sale I could find in the country was a beachfront compound in Naples, Florida for $133 million. That area is an ultra-luxury market that has low property taxes and excellent privacy, and two properties (one on each side) also sold, making the hat trick of three sales for $225 million. The highest sale ever of a residential transaction that I could find was for a penthouse along Central Park in Manhattan for $238 million in 2019.

In Salt Lake County, a 11,438 sq. ft. home with 4BR/9BA just closed escrow this month for $11,100,000 in Olympus Cove. The buyer and seller were represented by Summit Sotheby’s. Washington County had a sale of $7,300,000 in Westgage Hills of a 9,000 square foot home with 5BR/8BA listed by ERA Brokers Consolidated. In Davis County the high sale’s price was $4,588,000 in Shepard Heights in Farmington with 10,363 sq. ft., 6BR/10 BA listed and sold by Summit Sotheby’s, and in Utah County a home sold for $10,365,000 in October in Old Orchard Estates, listed by Summit Sotheby’s and sold by Real Broker, LLC.

With one of the biggest concerns of 2025 being housing affordability, it looks like the rich aren’t suffering too much here in the state, but when the average Joe or Jane working 40 hours per week can’t afford a two bedroom home here or in the U.S., the market looks bleak for 2026.

Last summer the Salt Lake City Counsel enacted a legislative intent to explore available options for a street sign program that designates a recognized historic district in the city.  For example, if you live east on Laird Avenue, the street sign would said LAIRD AVE and either ‘local historic district’ or ‘local historic district/Yalecrest Neighborhood’. Salt Lake City has 14 historic districts, including The Avenues, Capitol Hill, Central City, South Temple, Yalecrest, and University, plus smaller local ones within Yalecrest (like Normandie Circle, Harvard Heights) and others like City Creek/Memory Grove, Exchange Place, Liberty Wells, and Fort Douglas.  We created this to preserve distinct architectural styles and historical development from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. These districts are designated by the City Council and/or are listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

As a volunteer Planning and Zoning Commissioner for eight years, I found that many home buyers had no clue that their home was in one of the 14 local historic districts. They would do things to their property that weren’t allowed under the protection rules for the districts, like putting up vinyl fencing, installing vinyl windows vs wood frame windows, painting exterior brick or masonry, etc. The point is to ensure compatibility with the homes’ historic character and the surrounding properties. After much discussion and meetings, we were able to require title companies to state on title reports that the property is in a historic district. Thus, no excuse for changing the exterior of the property and saying to enforcement officials “Oh, I didn’t know it was in a Historic District!”

Back in the 1960’s and ‘70s, homes in areas like The Avenues that were many decades old were being torn down like crazy. Locals stepped up and worked with City officials to create rules and regulations to protect these precious properties, much to the distaste of flippers who often wanted to opt for cheaper upgrades to a property rather than protect the exteriors.  FYI-you can basically do whatever you’d like inside your home if you live in a historic neighborhood, as it’s the exteriors we’re attempting to protect. I recall one public hearing for Historic Landmarks Commission (I’m now on my second term serving the City in Landmarks) where a property was flagged in Capitol Hill for having painted the brushed brick exterior.  The owners has recently purchased the home and thought it was lovely, but had no idea it was not in compliance with local ordinances. It was going to cost a fortune to remove the paint.

City Council has been asking for feedback, and eventually street signs in historic neighborhoods will soon advertise you’re in a precious area of our town. For a lookup map go to www.slc.gov/historic-preservation/historic-districts-and-buildings/local-historic-districts/

The most accurate real estate listing sites will always be in the local multiple listing sites (MLS), as this is where data begins. When I meet with a seller(s) to ‘list’ their home, that means the property will then be entered into the MLS system which is a public website for folks to see listings for land, homes, condos and multi-unit properties. Few commercial properties are put on an MLS for public view but may appear just on that firm’s website. But not all websites for real estate firms are great. Most will have a link to MLS listings for all companies who have listings in their local MLS, bio’s of their agents and broker and possibly helpful hints to buy and sell, links to favorite vendors, etc. The system has been around since the late 1800’s. It really got a serious start in San Diego in 1885, when real estate brokers shared listing info via runners who took horses, trolleys, and later cars to deliver info back and forth between brokerages.

Fast forward to the early 2000’s when some execs at Expedia created the real estate company Zillow, with the intent to provide property data and give instant home evaluations called ‘Zestimates’. A few years after launching the site it created the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace and then started and stopped their ‘iBuying’ program where they would purchase your home online. The real estate market was smokin’ hot in 2018 when the company made online offers to home owners but found that soon turned into a big losing part of the brand and was shut down as the market became soft. Their website remains full of information but as a top selling broker, I can say that Zillow Zestimates are notoriously wrong and I’m constantly hearing both complaints about that from clients or am having to give clients the real data that shows their property isn’t worth the millions of dollars that Zestimate gave them.

Zillow right now is in big trouble with the Feds. A new class action lawsuit claims that Zillow eavesdrops on client communications to catch their Zillow agents who have recommend lenders that aren’t part of the Zillow Mortgage Marketplace, requires its special ‘Flex’ agents to meet quotas and cherry picks highly qualified buyers for mortgages but offers higher loan interest rates and inaccurate disclosures. These would be RESPA violations wherein Zillow (according to the lawsuit) is “illegally both giving and receiving a thing of value related to referrals and receiving payments that is not in exchange for completing the property transaction.” The complaint has been amended after a separate class action suit accuses the real estate firm of using kickbacks to boost its mortgage. There are also accusations that defendants have made claiming RICO violations, in that the company runs a criminal enterprise of sorts of fraud, extortion, etc.

We shall see what happens with these lawsuits in the coming new year. HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

I am definitely a foodie. My mother was a food columnist, my grandmother one of the first women to cook on television, both aunts were food stylists for major magazines and the Betty Crocker company, and my uncle and his wife had a very famous chefs store in NYC that catered to folks like Julia Childs and James Beard. I grew up cooking but whoa, in college I was poor and ate ten cents a pack ramen and forty cents a box of Hamburger Helper. Yeah, the meat cost extra but ground turkey had become a thing and was super cheap to add as a protein.

The Today Show recently reported on the ‘Hamburger Helper Index’ which basically says when the sales of the product go up that indicates our economy is in trouble. Well, Hamburger Helper, the cost-effective comfort food, is seeing a surge in popularity, highlighted by the economic pressures consumers are facing at the dinner table. A box of the stuff now costs around $2.50 and there are over 40 varieties of Hamburger Helper products, including beef, chicken, and tuna options, in a wide range of flavors and pasta or rice shapes (the exact numbers can vary as new flavors are introduced and others are discontinued).

It also got noticed recently on the TV series ‘The Bear’, when the chef Sydney helped a teenager elevate a box of the stuff by adding onions, heavy cream, freshly grated cheese and finished it with toasted panko breadcrumbs for texture. Yum! That show may have sparked more interest in the product as sales have increased this year by 14.9%. People are looking for cheaper food options-I know I am. Hell, every time I buy a single bag of groceries the charge is close to $100 or more!

There’s also an informal economic indicator called the “cardboard box index” which uses box production and shipments as a measure of consumer spending and overall economic health. According to the Monday Morning Economist, almost every product we buy spends time inside a box. Former Fed Chair Alan Greenspan even followed the index when he held the post from 1987 to 2006.  Over the past few months several U.S. box makers have announced closures or cutbacks, with an estimate of 9% of box production set to shut down, putting thousands of workers out of jobs. Fewer orders = weaker demand =leading to recession.

How to survive? Try more budget meats. I love the carniceria at Rancho Markets for deals. Split your ground beef with canned beans or lentils. Don’t add meat and instead break an egg or two over the pan of noodlely goodness, cover it and cook til done. Add cheap nutritional yeast for a savory flavor, cottage cheese for the lasagna box. Yeah, Hamburger Helper is not the healthiest alternative (have you read the ingredients?) but it’s cheap, done in 20 minutes and tastes okay! I’ll admit that I bought a box last week and I ate every bit of it. Dinner was under $8 for two of us. Winning!

People are becoming more and more concerned about their own economic situations given government policies and that fact is being supported by different MLS/REALTOR groups around the country. One survey from the mid-Atlantic region found that 75% of Realtors reported at least one buyer pausing their home search, with just under a third of those citing economic uncertainty, and nearly one-fifth blaming “general financial issues”.  I have 21 agents under my brokers license and they report weekly to me how the market is changing for both buyers and sellers.

That survey found that more than a third of agents are seeing sellers pulling their listings. Here in Utah, we’re seeing the same thing, after homes and condos sit on the market for months and months sellers tell us they just don’t want to keep dropping prices until they get an offer and would rather wait to sell until the economy improves.

The Fed lowered the federal funds rate last week, which is the target rate banks charge each other for overnight loans of reserves. This was the first cut since December 2024 and the Fed stated to expect more cuts by the end of the year. The rate drop was for a concern over a weaker national job market with slowing hiring. Mortgage rates should come down a tad, but not so much to create a rush of buyers and refinances. So many homeowners are sitting on mortgages with rates of @3% that they don’t want to refinance or sell. Basically, the current real estate market is not pro-seller or pro-buyer but instead is favoring nobody.

Both the survey and local agents are seeing tough decisions with their clients and customers and if the economy worsens sales will slump and interest rates won’t help. New home sales have already fallen from post-pandemic highs yet home prices here in the state were up 5.1% in August over last year at the same time, whereas the number of homes sold rose only .5% during the same time.  Zillow reported at the beginning of this month that 52% of home sales in Utah were under list price. Home sales are sluggish around the country but the place with the fastest selling homes is Milwaukee according to Realtor.com. The median listing price for a home there in August was $399,900. The cities ranked behind Milwaukee for having the fastest-selling homes are Buffalo, New York; Chicago; Grand Rapids, Michigan; and Cincinnati, all at 39 days; and Detroit; Hartford, Connecticut; and Providence, Rhode Island, at 38 days.

And if you’re not buying and thinking about renting a recent report from Deseret News from Rent Café found that the minimum hourly wage needed to afford the average two-bedroom apartment in Utah is $31.27 as of September 2025 based on the average cost of a two-bedroom apartment here. As a comparison, it’s $52 in Boston $51 in California, and $21 in Oklahoma.