The Park City Market Isn't Crashing. Here's the Real Story Behind That 15% Drop

Lucía Torres · 2026-09-06

Real estate statistics are a lot like ski conditions reports. Technically accurate, occasionally useless, and entirely dependent on which run you happen to be standing on. Ours produced a beauty this quarter. Our single-family median dropped 15% year over year, to $1,685,000. If you're a professional watching the headlines, you're probably already dialing your clients to deliver bad news. Give me two minutes before you do. Because the same market over twelve months looks like this: 1,120 single-family sales, $3.29 billion in volume, median of $1,900,000 — up 6%. Same report. Different question. The numbers aren't lying, but they're definitely not telling the whole truth either. ### First, a map problem The report covers the **Park City MLS service areas across Summit and Wasatch Counties**, a much bigger footprint than just Park City itself. It scoops in Heber, Midway, Kamas, Oakley, Coalville, and the Jordanelle basin. Lovely markets, all of them. But they do not price like Old Town, Deer Valley, Promontory, or Canyons Village. So when the mix tilts toward the more affordable end of that footprint, the area median drops without one single Park City home losing a dollar of value. Whenever you see "the Park City market" on an MLS-wide figure, ask which map is actually being described. Most write-ups don't bother to clarify. ### So what actually happened Let's break down what really moved this quarter, because the headline number is hiding a much more interesting story. - **More homes sold, not fewer.** 259 single-family closings against 255 a year ago. Up 2%. More transactions with a lower midpoint means the middle of our market got busy. - **The average barely flinched.** Median down 15%, average down 4%, volume down 3%. If values were truly sliding 15%, all three metrics would fall together. That gap is the fingerprint of a changed mix, not a changed market. Here's the tell I like best: single-family and condos combined show a twelve-month median up 12%, which is *more* than single-family (+6%) or condos (+4%) managed on their own. That's arithmetically impossible from pure appreciation alone. It happens because condos slipped from 47% of transactions to 41%. Mix pushed the number down in one place and up in another. ### The number I'd actually flag Land. 144 lots closed, up **58%**. Volume up **102%**. Median lot price $1,200,000, up **37%**. Buyers who can't find the right finished home are buying dirt and building instead. So if your client is frustrated with resale inventory, the build path isn't some clever secret anymore — it's crowded. And every buyer who chooses to build isn't absorbing existing inventory now, but they also aren't adding to it later either. That dynamic tightens resale supply over time, which is something to watch. Condos, briefly: 788 sold over twelve months, down 16%, but the average sale price rose 10% to $1,801,474. Fewer units changing hands at higher prices. If your client's plan is "let's start with a condo and see how we like the area," say so now rather than in month three when they're already disappointed with the options. ### What I'd tell your client **If they're selling?** The area median has almost nothing to do with their actual outcome. What matters is their specific neighborhood, their price band, what's happened in the last ninety days, and how long comparable homes have been sitting on the market. **If they're buying?** The market didn't soften 15%. What this report can't tell you is price per square foot, which is the number that genuinely answers the question "did values actually fall?" The median never has. ### Where the action really is New construction in Deer Valley East Village continues to be the hottest segment right now. That's not hype — that's where buyer demand is concentrating, and it's worth paying attention to if you're advising anyone on either side of a transaction there. Someone headed to Park City, Deer Valley, or the Wasatch Back? Send me the address and I'll pull the street-level version for you — real comparables, not an area average wearing a disguise. **Kathryn Vallee** · Summit Sotheby's International Realty · Park City, Utah Call or text 435-565-0797