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The highs and lows of local home prices
May 06, 2010 | 3548 views | 0 
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As average prices continue to sink, extremes illustrate another side of real estate market
Looking for a home in Tooele County? Just pick a price point between $1.5 million and $72,000.
Those are the top and bottom prices for homes listed for sale in the county right now. At both the high and low ends, you get a four-bedroom home, but the differences are tremendous. Lot size, location and age of the home all contribute to the final price.
At the top end of the spectrum is a home in Rush Valley.
“It is wonderful home,” said Jack Walters, sales associate for Coldwell Banker in Tooele and the listing agent for the most expensive home listed in Tooele County. “Along with the home, you are getting over 100 acres of land, which is part of the reason the price is so high.”
Walters’ listing is for a 3,722-square-foot, log-cabin-style home on North Big Hollow Road in Rush Valley.
The home was built in 1995 by current owners Gina and Randy Garrison when the couple moved here from Texas. Randy works ground crew for Southwest airlines and was reassigned to the Salt Lake airport. The couple needed a house with property for their horses. Gina manages the Tooele office of Cornerstone Title Company.
With their children out of the home, the Garrison’s are now planning on returning home to Texas. Their son is in the army and will be leaving this week for a tour of duty in Afghanistan and their daughter teaches at Grantsville Elementary.
Gina is a little apprehensive about leaving her daughter behind, but the cold weather is wearing on her.
“The truck with the snow plow will go with the house,” Randy said. “I don’t want to see a plow again.”
Their home has been on the market for 313 days, according to the Multiple Listing Service for Tooele and the Wasatch Front.
The average wait to sell a home in the county is 90 days, according to MLS.
“We don’t get too many $1.5 million homes in Tooele,” Walters said.
The home, built with lodge pole pine logs from Yellowstone National Park, includes a large great room with decks on front and back. It also has sweeping views of the mountains and valleys of Rush Valley.
Just off the spacious kitchen is a dining area with a massive oak dining table built by Randy.
“The table is staying with the home,” said Gina. “It is too heavy to take back to Texas with us.”
The master suite is located upstairs and has a jetted tub and walk-in closet. Downstairs is a weight room and a garage that is being converted to a game room, with a detached garage under construction. Outside is a large metal shop building and storage shed, four covered horse stalls, landscaping with mature trees, a fully fenced yard, fields of alfalfa and wheat, and private riding trails.
At the other end of the price range, the lowest listed home in Tooele County, according to MLS data, is a $72,000 rock and adobe exterior home at 392 South 100 West in Tooele. The home was built in 1895. It has four bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and dining area, and a small basement. The 2,299-square-foot home is located on a 0.23 acre lot.
The interior needs some work, the wallpaper is torn in places, the stairs could use a permanent rail, and the rugs need replacing.
“You could fix this up and turn it around and sell it,” said Vicki Griffith, broker for Prudential Utah Tooele and the listing agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development repossessed home. “It is very solid building.”
The two extremes above bracket a county housing market that has seen average sales prices drop from $206,000 in the third quarter of 2007 to $154,250 in the first quarter of this year.
There also appears to be a gap between what people want for their homes versus what they get. The average listing price for a home in Tooele County right now is $206,766, according to MLS data.
There are also considerable variations in price depending upon geography.
More expensive homes are typically found on five-acre and larger lots in Erda. Grantsville also tends to be more expensive, according to Walters.
“And the best bang for your buck, or most home for the dollar, is in the southwest quadrant of Tooele,” Walters said.
The No. 2 most expensive home listed in the county is in Erda. It’s a 4,664-square-foot, all-brick home on a five-acre lot 1415 E Pass Canyon Road with five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. It has a swimming pool and hot tub and is listed at $799,000, according to MLS data.
In Grantsville, the most expensive home listed is for $590,000. It is a 5,886-square-foot brick home on Ginny Circle in the Hale subdivision. The house has six bedrooms, four full bathrooms and two partial bathrooms, and a large theater room.
Large homes at the top end of the scale tend to skew average sales results upward, according to Griffith. For instance, the Garrison home in Rush Valley is priced at 625 percent above the average list price for the county, while the 1895 Tooele rock home is only 65 percent less than that average.
If the $1.5 million dollar Rush Valley home sells at its asking price, it will equal 7.2 average homes.
“That should bring our average sales price up,” Griffith said.
Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com
Looking for a home in Tooele County? Just pick a price point between $1.5 million and $72,000.
Those are the top and bottom prices for homes listed for sale in the county right now. At both the high and low ends, you get a four-bedroom home, but the differences are tremendous. Lot size, location and age of the home all contribute to the final price.
At the top end of the spectrum is a home in Rush Valley.
“It is wonderful home,” said Jack Walters, sales associate for Coldwell Banker in Tooele and the listing agent for the most expensive home listed in Tooele County. “Along with the home, you are getting over 100 acres of land, which is part of the reason the price is so high.”
Walters’ listing is for a 3,722-square-foot, log-cabin-style home on North Big Hollow Road in Rush Valley.
The home was built in 1995 by current owners Gina and Randy Garrison when the couple moved here from Texas. Randy works ground crew for Southwest airlines and was reassigned to the Salt Lake airport. The couple needed a house with property for their horses. Gina manages the Tooele office of Cornerstone Title Company.
With their children out of the home, the Garrison’s are now planning on returning home to Texas. Their son is in the army and will be leaving this week for a tour of duty in Afghanistan and their daughter teaches at Grantsville Elementary.
Gina is a little apprehensive about leaving her daughter behind, but the cold weather is wearing on her.
“The truck with the snow plow will go with the house,” Randy said. “I don’t want to see a plow again.”
Their home has been on the market for 313 days, according to the Multiple Listing Service for Tooele and the Wasatch Front.
The average wait to sell a home in the county is 90 days, according to MLS.
“We don’t get too many $1.5 million homes in Tooele,” Walters said.
The home, built with lodge pole pine logs from Yellowstone National Park, includes a large great room with decks on front and back. It also has sweeping views of the mountains and valleys of Rush Valley.
Just off the spacious kitchen is a dining area with a massive oak dining table built by Randy.
“The table is staying with the home,” said Gina. “It is too heavy to take back to Texas with us.”
The master suite is located upstairs and has a jetted tub and walk-in closet. Downstairs is a weight room and a garage that is being converted to a game room, with a detached garage under construction. Outside is a large metal shop building and storage shed, four covered horse stalls, landscaping with mature trees, a fully fenced yard, fields of alfalfa and wheat, and private riding trails.
At the other end of the price range, the lowest listed home in Tooele County, according to MLS data, is a $72,000 rock and adobe exterior home at 392 South 100 West in Tooele. The home was built in 1895. It has four bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and dining area, and a small basement. The 2,299-square-foot home is located on a 0.23 acre lot.
The interior needs some work, the wallpaper is torn in places, the stairs could use a permanent rail, and the rugs need replacing.
“You could fix this up and turn it around and sell it,” said Vicki Griffith, broker for Prudential Utah Tooele and the listing agent for the Department of Housing and Urban Development repossessed home. “It is very solid building.”
The two extremes above bracket a county housing market that has seen average sales prices drop from $206,000 in the third quarter of 2007 to $154,250 in the first quarter of this year.
There also appears to be a gap between what people want for their homes versus what they get. The average listing price for a home in Tooele County right now is $206,766, according to MLS data.
There are also considerable variations in price depending upon geography.
More expensive homes are typically found on five-acre and larger lots in Erda. Grantsville also tends to be more expensive, according to Walters.
“And the best bang for your buck, or most home for the dollar, is in the southwest quadrant of Tooele,” Walters said.
The No. 2 most expensive home listed in the county is in Erda. It’s a 4,664-square-foot, all-brick home on a five-acre lot 1415 E Pass Canyon Road with five bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms. It has a swimming pool and hot tub and is listed at $799,000, according to MLS data.
In Grantsville, the most expensive home listed is for $590,000. It is a 5,886-square-foot brick home on Ginny Circle in the Hale subdivision. The house has six bedrooms, four full bathrooms and two partial bathrooms, and a large theater room.
Large homes at the top end of the scale tend to skew average sales results upward, according to Griffith. For instance, the Garrison home in Rush Valley is priced at 625 percent above the average list price for the county, while the 1895 Tooele rock home is only 65 percent less than that average.
If the $1.5 million dollar Rush Valley home sells at its asking price, it will equal 7.2 average homes.
“That should bring our average sales price up,” Griffith said.
Tim Gillie: tgillie@tooeletranscript.com
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