Looking to buy Salt Lake City-area real estate on a budget? Good luck

By Lesley Mitchell

The Salt Lake Tribune

Article Launched:03/08/2007

Holladay may not have the same flair as Park City, but the Salt Lake City suburb is quickly developing a reputation for high-priced homes.

Case in point: Insurance magnate Ronald Gunnell's supersized, multimillion-dollar estate in Holladay, which he says is under contract, probably will be among the highest-priced houses ever to sell along the Wasatch Front - if not the highest.

The property is even pricey by Park City standards. Gunnell listed the 28,740-square-foot trophy home on 16 acres in 2005 for the record price of $29 million. Because the pool of available buyers was so small, he later relisted it on 6 acres for $17.9 million. It is unclear what the selling price on the property will be because Gunnell isn't revealing it, and before taking it off the Multiple Listing Service last year, he marketed the property on as little as 4 acres for $13.5 million.

Gunnell also won't disclose the potential buyer for the house and property with seven bedrooms, 15 bathrooms, nine fireplaces, a home theater and ponds.

But one thing is for sure: Properties such as the Gunnell mansion are becoming more common in Holladay.

In fact, the highest-priced house on the market in Salt Lake County is an $8 million home in Holladay.

hat property, built in 2000, sits on 2 acres and has 15,330 square feet of space.

Jaren Davis, with Coldwell Banker Residential in Midvale, said even though the Salt Lake Valley's real estate market remains hot, multimillion-dollar houses can remain on the market for years because people who can afford them often aren't interested in a resale property.

"When you get into a price range where people have some custom tastes, they have an inclination to have it built themselves," Davis said.

But it is getting harder to do that, especially in communities such as Holladay, where vacant land is getting more scarce.

Less land means higher prices. Both of Holladay's Zip Code areas have a median selling price of more than $300,000 - high by Salt Lake County standards, where the median sales price in 2006 was $225,000.

In Zip Code 84117, median selling prices rose more than 33 percent, to $369,000, from 2005 to 2006. Countywide, prices also were up, but by 21 percent.

In Zip Code 84124, prices were up about 24 percent, to $335,000.

The median selling price probably understates just how pricey real estate in Holladay has become, said real estate agent Kathy Tangaro, who specializes in residential real estate.

That's because many people are buying older homes in Holladay, demolishing them and building multimillion-dollar properties in their place.

Fueling demand for houses in Holladay is the city's central location, mature trees and in many cases, larger lots, she said.

Tangaro, who is listing a property for about $4 million in Holladay, said a number of houses in Holladay are built on acreage. And the cost of that acreage has skyrocketed in recent years.

"Twenty years ago you could have purchased an acre in Holladay for about $100,000," Tangaro said. "Today? If you can find one, you're going to pay $800,000 to $1 million."

lesley@sltrib.com