Realtors report robust housing market

Recent economic development report skewed vacancy rate, they say
1,806.
That number got quite a bit of attention among area Realtors. It was tucked into a recently released economic development report produced by Lewis Young Robertson & Burningham on behalf of Carbon County.
The number appears on page 8 of the 83-page report, which cost the county $25,000 to produce.
It supposedly reflects the number of vacant housing units in Carbon County, amounting to nearly 20 percent of all homes in the area.
More than a few Realtors have said the number is hogwash.
Balynda Scovill, president of the Carbon-Emery Board of Realtors, says even when the real estate market was at rock bottom during the Great Recession there were not that many vacant homes.
“Even if you go down a bad street in East Carbon, even when our market was worse, you don’t find a vacant house for every five houses. You just don’t,” Scovill said. “Where are they coming up with all these vacant houses?”
Mike Metzger, a Realtor with Bridge Realty, said he too scoffed at the number. He said when the market was at its worst, there were only about 650 homes listed for sale. By comparison, listings these days average between 200 and 300, sitting on the market on average 90 days.
“When I saw it, 1,800 (vacant homes), I just said no way,” he said. “If there are 1,800 vacant homes, I need to get going and get them listed. But there’s not. I don’t know how they came up with that. It makes it sound really bad, like downtown Detroit.”
Metzger said he did his own digging and checked with local municipalities and the Price River Water Improvement District. By his count there are about 9,500 active residential connections in Carbon County.
Coincidentally, that economic development report states there are 9,604 total number of households in Carbon County, pretty close to Metzger’s number.
As for the 1,806 vacancies, the report states that the statistic comes from the American Community Survey, 2015, which is based on data collected by the Census Bureau.
A check of that data online confirms that the report is accurately reflecting what the Census Bureau reported in 2015.
A look further shows the Census Bureau reported similar numbers for other years. In 2016, for example, it reported the number of vacant homes in Carbon County was 1,861. In 2014, it reported 1,752 vacant homes. In 2013, it was 1,773; and, in 2012, 1,768.
The margin of error each year hovers around plus or minus 230 vacancies, which still reflects higher vacancy rates than Realtors says is reality.
One reason the statistic worries Realtors is because they believe it could negatively impact the market, which has seen increasing values lately.
“We were up a lot from 2016. We had a really busy market in 2017,” Scovill said. “Values didn’t go up a ton, but they did go up a little bit. Our days on market went down.”
Mary Bishop, a Realtor at Etzel Realty, says more people are moving to the area and buying homes. Scovill, who also works at Etzel, says she’s seeing more retirees. Metzger says he’s seeing more buyers who are priced out of markets up north moving to this area.
First quarter home sales and listings provided by Scovill indeed reflect the strongest first quarter in more than five years.
The activity suggests everyone should disregard what the Census Bureau is reporting. It just isn’t true.