The real estate market in the region has cooled considerably in the last year, while new residential construction in city limits has stayed slow and steady throughout the last couple of years, bucking the topsy turvy trends around the country. 

Eric Paul, broker with Heart Mountain Realty, said while the flurry of activity during the height of the real estate boom was exciting, he prefers the more normal pace. The only issue for buyers is that mortgage rates have spiked even as prices have settled down. Inventory has also not rebounded, with 37 listings as of Oct. 11 in Powell. 

“We’re kind of back close to the right before pre-COVID housing counts, but we’re still about half of our historic typical listing count,” he said. “We usually are in the 80s.”

Inventory had fallen before COVID hit.

“We were down around 30-40 listings when COVID hit and then of course, people started coming here so that drove the inventory down lower and supply and demand kicked in and we had people bidding on houses and multiple offers,” Paul said. “So house prices went up exponentially.” 

Last October, the median house in Powell was $503,000. By July, that had risen to $579,000. Now, it’ back down to $500,000. The median sale price is much lower at $336,000. 

Inventory has risen as the median price has fallen, from a low of 16 listings in April to 38 in October. 

For real estate in the region, Paul said it’s about to the point where neither seller nor buyer has a big advantage. Houses are no longer going for over asking price generally, but with limited availability sellers aren’t having to drastically lower prices either. 

“It’s still not a bad time to be a seller if you’ve got the kinds of properties are still in demand and if you bring your house on at the right price and have it positioned ready to sell,” he said. “If it’s not beat up, a fixer upper, people don’t like fixer uppers anymore. Those days have been gone for a while.”

Paul said its ironic that in a time where fixer-upper TV shows are all over that even millennial home buyers aren’t interested. 

“They figured out it’s not as glamorous as it looks on TV,” he said. “It’s a lot of hard work.”

And the demographic of people moving into the Powell area are younger retirees, not people coming to flip houses. 

Development in Powell isn’t likely to tip the scales in favor of buyers — by flooding the market with more inventory — anytime soon. Powell building official Ben Hubbard said no new subdivisions were approved last year. So far in this fiscal year which began in July, there have been four building permits granted for single family residences, along with another two for duplexes. He said it’s about the historical average. 

“Whatever it was, things driving people to move, high prices and high interest rates have slowed that quite a lot,” he said. 

Still, there have been many more subdivisions approved in the county in the last year —many meetings have included at least one subdivision approval — although supply chain issues have slowed building. 

With all of the uncertainty brought on by not only supply chain issues but inflation, Paul said buyers and sellers should not simply sit on the fence if they need to buy or sell.

“If you’re a buyer sitting on the sidelines with the interest rates doing what they’re doing, you’re actually losing ground, because the prices aren’t going to drop enough to offset what the interest rate is doing” he said. “Prices would have to drop about 30% to offset the interest rates. And I don’t see that happening. We’re still selling property. There’s still buyers looking, it’s just not as hectic as it was a year ago.”