The pace of new home sales continue to accelerate through the winter months, though the snow has stifled last month’s expansion to 3.7%.  New Home Sales rose 12% in 2016, the quickest growth in 10 years.  It’s probably a good thing to note here that new homes make up just 10% of the overall market.  It’s getting more expensive to buy that new home smell: the Median Home Price for a new home is $312,900, a jump of 7% from this time last year. By comparison, the Median Home Price for an existing home is quite a bit lower at $228,900.  New carpet and new paint is good enough for an increasingly larger majority of the population: the number of Existing Home Sales increased 5.69% last month.  Buying a home is still one of the smartest things you can do for yourself.  The forecasted appreciation rate for a home in Utah for the 2017 year is 4.8%, which is higher than the cost to borrow the money to finance it.  It’s a good time to lock in that fixed rate still!