Builders, Realtors Target Utah’s Youthful First-Time Home Buyers

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Residents tend to marry younger
By Jeff Demoss

Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Utah

RISMEDIA, April 22 ? (KRT) ? Jason Nye’s parents graduated from college and had two children before buying their first home in Salt Lake City 20 years ago.

Nye, a 22-year-old technical sales major at Weber State University, is preparing to buy his first home a year before graduating and six months before his wife expects to bear their first child.

“I haven’t done all my research yet, but it looks like I can own for about the same as what I’m paying in rent,” Nye said. He and his wife are looking to move out of their Ogden apartment into a house to make room for the family they have planned.

Utahns have historically married and started families at younger ages than their fellow Americans, and the hot housing market in recent years has builders and Realtors zeroing in on the state’s large population of potential first-time homeowners.

“About 30 percent of our total business comes from first-time buyers. We build communities in the area specifically for them,” said Jed Nilson, sales manager for Ogden-based builder Nilson Homes.

Nilson was one of several builders on the Weber State campus Wednesday trying to show students that most of them can get into their own home in the current market, sometimes for less than they’re paying in rent.

Sponsored by Bank of Utah, the event attracted passing students by with Twinkie-eating contests and drawings to win a shot at a cash grab inside the bank’s “Money Machine,” a small booth with fan attached that blows dollar bills around inside.

“College students used to graduate and get into a solid job before buying a home,” Nilson said. “Now they’re buying and earning equity during school that they can use to build something bigger and nicer later on.”

He said Nilson Homes will build more than 200 homes in Weber and Davis counties this year, up from 45 in 2002, due largely to young, first-time buyers.

First-timers have contributed to a sales surge overall this year. The Weber/North Davis Association of Realtors reported Wednesday that home sales in March were up nearly 20 percent over March 2004 in Weber County, and almost 25 percent in Davis County.

But while the buyer’s market of today provides a wealth of sales opportunities for Realtors and mortgage lenders, it also carries a certain ethical responsibility, said Branden Hansen, senior vice president of mortgage banking for Ogden-based Bank of Utah. The bank is one of the state’s top lenders to first-time homebuyers.

“I could put someone with a $50,000 income into a million-dollar home, but they wouldn’t be able to afford it,” Hansen said. “Lenders need to make sure the people they deal with can afford the loan, or we could see a lot of foreclosures when rates go up.”

Copyright ? 2005, Standard-Examiner, Ogden, Utah

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

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