FrontRunner may lure more commuters to live in N. Utah
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By JEFF DEMOSS
Standard-Examiner staff
jdemoss@standard.net
Brenda Miller likes rural living enough to drive from her home in Pleasant View to her job in Salt Lake City every weekday, but a steady rise in gasoline prices in recent years had her rethinking the commuter lifestyle.
Now that commuter rail service has started, her problem is solved.
"I can just drive to Ogden, get on the train and relax, and 59 minutes later I'm there," said Miller, who has been commuting to her banking job for more than three years. "The traffic worries are gone. The gas price worries aren't totally gone, but they're a lot smaller now."
While the opening of the Utah Transit Authority's FrontRunner service provides a new option for commuters like Miller, it also could start a northward movement of people who want to live in a rural setting but have stayed near their jobs in the city to avoid high transportation costs.
If such a trend were to materialize, it would likely drive up home prices in the area, real estate experts say.
"I can't imagine anything but a positive effect on real estate," said Cal Musselman, president of the Weber/North Davis Association of Realtors.
Homes are still a better value in Weber and Davis counties than in Salt Lake County, and "commuter rail gives those buyers who are feeling locked into Salt Lake County an option in purchasing real estate that is extremely positive," Musselman said.
Residential real estate values in the area have seen strong increases over the past three years.
Utah led the nation in home price appreciation last year, and remains one of the few states that have not seen declining values sometime in the past three years.
However, those increases have been leveling off in recent months, and some predict local home prices could flatline this year.
"Values are almost strangely staying up real high," said Randy Benoit, associate broker with Prudential Utah Real Estate in Layton.
Average prices in March rose about 8 percent in Weber County and 2 percent in Davis County compared with a year earlier.
"I think we'll stay at about that same rate through the end of the year," Benoit said.
Whether FrontRunner commuter rail line will boost housing prices at the north end of the state remains to be seen, as the trains have been in service for only two weeks.
Aside from the natural economic growth around stops along the route, FrontRunner provides a new option for people who may want to work in Salt Lake City but live in more rural Northern Utah.
That could bring in more residents with relatively high incomes who are willing to spend more on a house, said Pam Perlich, a senior research economist with the University of Utah's Bureau of Economic and business research.
"Even though prices have increased lately, I think people still see that area as a very good deal compared with most other places," Perlich said.
The average home price in the first quarter of 2008 was $287,000 in Salt Lake County and $265,000 in Utah County, compared with $255,000 in Davis County and $189,000 in Weber County, according to the Utah Association of Realtors.
Not only will FrontRunner attract more people from the southern Wasatch Front, it should also bring more from other states, Musselman said.
"For people relocating here in general, especially if they come from congested areas, having that option is absolutely a positive experience," he said.
As the rail expands northward to Pleasant View and possibly beyond, it could have a profound impact on northern Weber County and even Box Elder County, where agriculture has traditionally dominated the landscape.
Growth is good, but needs to be managed in a way that minimizes its impact on agriculture, said Randy Parker, chief executive of the Utah Farm Bureau Federation.
As development drives economic growth, it places upward pressure on land prices, which makes farmers and ranchers more likely to sell agricultural land, Parker said.
"It's a balancing act," he said. "We all want more prosperity for our rural communities, but agricultural land needs to be preserved for a variety of reasons. We need local food sources for security reasons, and for many of our communities, it's their livelihood."
UTA's plans call for expanding FrontRunner north to Brigham City and south to Payson by 2030.
The Wasatch Front Regional Council determines when and where the service is needed based on growth projections, "and we just make it happen," UTA spokeswoman Carrie Bohnsack-Ware said.
The attractiveness of living in a rural area and having an easy commuting option to an urban job market could ultimately replace the rural with the suburban, and while that is already starting to happen, "it's quite a way down the road" before Northern Utah is completely built out, Perlich said.
"But I think you will definitely be seeing some new faces in that area."
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