What's New To Utah? (Ogden, St. George: short sale, foreclosures, HOA)

[illinoisboy]

I don't know if this is a silly question or not, but I'm just curious about what is new in Utah. I have been reading their Life In The Valley magazine lately that I got from Park City last year, and it looks like Utah's economy is doing pretty good. So is their anything exciting worth talking about going up in Utah?

I have heard about Daybreak, Suncrest, and Traverse Mountain, along with Downtown Rising and all the various things in PC, and they all sound pretty cool.

[illinoisboy]

I looked at the Bear Lake website because that looks like a really cool place to vacation for a couple days. I saw that they are starting to build a brand new golf course and more big homes up there. I can deffinatly see that area becoming the next Park City.

[illinoisboy]

OOOOOOK.............

I guess this is a dumb thread since no one has said anything but I just want to throw some things in:

DOWNTOWN RISING
In my opinion, this is probably one of the biggest projects going on in the country. Their website is saying that they basically want to transform the entire downtown area of SLC. Their talking about bigger, taller buildings, more artsy buildings, increased landscaping, improving roads, adding more mass transit, everything!

The one thing that sticks out to me the most is the whole City Creek Center development. They say its gonna cost 1.6 BILLION DOLLARS! (YES, WITH A B!!!) That is almost as much as it cost them to build the Bellagio in Vegas, and thats pretty nice! I think the whole thing sounds pretty cool, but how come they have to take away all these other malls in the process? Why can't they build this thing on the outskirts of downtown, and mabe as a result, in the long run they will increase the size of downtown? I don't know, thats just my opinion

ST GEORGE
OK so everyone is moving here for the lifestyle, but where are all the jobs? If they are gonna have a population of over 600,000 like they say, than shouldn't they be doing something like SLC is with it's downtown?

I'm sorry, I just have all these ideas in my head right now...

[BuhByeCalifornia]

Hi, Illinoisboy!

Sorry no one has answered your posts yet but thanks for the info...I had heard about Downtown Rising but not much detail so thanks for giving me the info so I could research it myself.

It sounds like City Creek Center is going to be a destination / tourism venue in downtown SLC. It does sound like it will be amazing which is a good thing because the old mall was pretty rundown. Gateway seems like a tourist hot spot right now but my only complaint with Gateway is that there are no real "anchor" stores. City Creek will have Nordstrom & Macy's.

I've always wondered about jobs in St. George too. Our best friends live there but he commutes to San Jose, CA every week! Another friend who lives there works out of his home as he's in sales. It's tough too because there isn't major airport in St. George. Our friend used to drive down to Las Vegas to catch his weekly plane until his company finally stepped up to fly him out of St. George (which airfares are probably much higher!).

[Fate Belongstome]

I can only tell my own experience with Traverse Mountain and Sun Crest. Sun Crest's HOA (home owners association) has filed for bankruptcy so all of those awesome amenities are now a dream.

We bought a short sale in Traverse Mountain. We are waiting to get some neighbors because all of the homes by us are in some form of foreclosure. We got an awesome deal here if you are a buyer looking to move in.

[BuhByeCalifornia]

Traverse Mountain was definitely one of our favorite areas when we were looking to buy land a couple of years ago. We love the whole idea of a planned community and the views of Utah Lake from some of those properties out there are just gorgeous.

Every time our family / friends come out for a visit from Cali, we always take them to Thanksgiving Point and then around Traverse Mountain to look at the homes...they are always so blown away with what their money could buy there...especially with so much inventory now.

[illinoisboy]

So did Suncrest file a bankrupcy because no one is moving there? Thats wierd, it seems like it would be such a cool place to live, above everything. I'd love to live there. Illinois is just so boring (scenery that is, Chicago's the greatest city in the world! That's something I deffinatly would miss If I moved anywhere else)

Anyway, thanks for chiming in guys!

[Fate Belongstome]

It was actually the main developer up there that filed for bankruptcy. So many people bought speculatively and were trying to flip houses that the great majority of them are not occupied and never have been. Now that there is such a housing slump, these investors can't sell and now there is a glut of foreclosures up there. I would suspect that the developer can't keep up with that. Honestly who is going to pay full price for a home from the developer when they can get a mansion for the same price from the bank who is trying to dump the property any way they can. It is sad because it really is beautiful up there. The same thing is happening in Traverse Mountain. These "house flippers" at one point were building houses for 300 - 500k and flipping them for 700 - 900k. Now the people who bought them are grossly upsidedown and cant afford them and can't sell them, and the flippers are stuck with the inventory that didn't sell - and they can't sell. Those are being foreclosed as well. I live in a neighborhood of beautiful homes - there are roughly 100 in my subdivision. I'd say at this point there are maybe 15 of those that are actually occupied by a family.

Anyway want to come over and be my neighbor? If you can afford to buy right now, there are amazing deals - Plus, I want some friends for my kids and myself!!!!

[alamph_0904]

I live at the Nort part of Utah- Up in Syracuse. In Ogden there is alot of things going on. They just built a new movie theater - arcade, gym, rock climbing wall, surfing, parachuting - the Mayor of Ogden is really trying to get it new businesses up here to make it a nice place to live.

[Bridget]

I live in Syracuse too and we have really loved it. We are within walking distance to a fishing pond, walking trails. There is a theatre that is going to be built. It is really growing. Antelope Island is 5 minutes away by car and my husband has ridden his bike out there.

I saw the mayor of Salt Lake on channel 4 today and he said that they are trying to get a place for Broadway productions downtown.

Out by Thanksgiving point they are building a huge hotel and entertainment center on the East side of the freeway.

There is the Legacy highway that is under construction and should help alleviate some traffic from the North. The frontrunner train will be open in a couple of weeks and that will also help those commuting from the North.

The mayor also mentioned that they will be starting the same type of commuter train for the Southern end of the valley. I don't know if it is an expansion of Trax but it should go out to Utah County (Lehi area).