High home prices getting you down? Unrelated buyers can share cost.

SALT LAKE CITY — Competition in the Utah housing market may be cooling but home prices remain stubbornly high. But what if there was a workaround for buyers who don’t qualify for a loan?

The median price for a single-family home in Salt Lake County is now $600,000, compared to $550,000 last July.

Thomas Wright, real estate agent, joins KSL NewsRadio’s Dave Noriega and Debbie Dujanovic to discuss alternative home buying options.

KSL NewsRadio’s Dale Spaulding reports that things are cooling off in the Utah housing market even if prices haven’t dropped.

Salt Lake Board of Realtors Communications Director Dave Anderson says competition to get into a home is gone.

“For homebuyers, they have a lot more choice. The multiple offers that we saw in 2020 and 2021 have disappeared. You don’t have to compete with 20 or 40 other people, and you don’t have to make an offer above asking price.”

High home prices

Dave said he was talking with a newlywed couple whose combined income of $140,000 would take them to a $400,000 limit on a home purchase.

“So, when you say the new medium [-priced] house is $600,000 — this couple is making good money, really good money — they don’t even qualify,” he said.

“So, they could go buy an $800,000 home and qualify for it if they bought it with another couple,” Debbie said.

“You can have up to four unrelated separate borrowers on a conventional loan,” Wright said. “It’s one more thing in the toolbox of the solutions we need to have to this affordable housing crisis, right?”

Related:

How to Buy a House with Multiple Owners

 

Dave & Dujanovic can be heard weekdays from 9 a.m. to noon. on KSL NewsRadio. Users can find the show on the KSL NewsRadio website and app, as well as Apple Podcasts and Google Play.