Get ready for the 28th annual Utah Valley Home and Garden Expo owned and sponsored by the Utah County Association of Realtors. 

The event is usually held in March or April, but organizers pushed it up this year, according to the Realtor association. So this year it’s on Friday, Feb. 22 and Saturday, Feb. 23 at the UCCU Events Center in Orem, formerly the McKay Events Center on the Utah Valley University campus. Tickets are $5 or you can get them free from a Realtor®. Admission is also free if you’re a kid under 12. 

While the local Realtor® association owns the event and used to have a committee run it, it was a lot of work, so now Utah Valley Expos (part of Bennett Communications) runs it. 

The Utah County Association of Realtors is listed as the title sponsor and counts it as a major revenue producer for the association beyond the hundreds of dollars member Realtors pay in dues each year. 

New this year is a complete landscaping section. Look for waterfalls, pathways, trees and other landscaping features to give you ideas, because spring WILL come, even though it’s freezing outside right now.

The event is a magnet for vendors who target homeowners, so expect to see about 200 of them and what they have to offer. Plans also include family activities and childrens’ areas, free seminars, valuable door prizes and yes, food. 

The Expo typically attracts 8,000 to 12,000 people, the association says.

Here’s a link for more information: http://www.uvexpo.com/home_garden/

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Taylor Oldroyd, Corporate Executive Officer of the Utah County Realtor association recently told the Women’s Council of Realtors that they’re only as good as the service and information they provide, then lauded them for surviving the last four years of a tough real estate market.

He cautioned them not to take the service they give for granted because they are in an industry with low overhead and a huge upside, which they must protect. He cited a PulteGroup poll that said six in 10 renters want to buy in the next two years, but the number of renters has skyrocketed.

Still, online searches for homes are up 253 percent, Oldroyd noted. Realtors can meet that demand with relevant websites, video environments, and mobile applications. Locally home starts are up and the owners of a new outlet mall have caught the vision with the start of the second phase of a new outlet mall in Lehi.

Improved transportation infrastructure — a rebuilt 1-15 through Utah County and the extension of Frontrunner to Provo is enhancing travel. Allegiant Air is now flying non-stop from Provo to Mesa Ariz. UCAR recently sponsored an Allegiant Air introduction lunch.

Other pluses for Utah County include:

•A Kiplinger Report that Provo is 2nd of 12 cities in the country where prices have gone up the most. In the last year prices there increased 21.8 percent.

•Provo has a low foreclosure rate now at one in 1,685.

Also, Oldroyd said, a Fortune 500 food manufacturing company is looking at Utah County to serve the Southwest. The key factor is the quality of the local workforce. That’s all good news for housing. There’s more and I’ll report on it in future columns to come.

Rodger L. Hardy is a Realtor affiliated with Prudential Utah Real Estate and a former real estate editor. For answers to your real estate questions please email him at rhardy@utahresidentialEteam.com.