Was out for SEMA, sorry for the delayed response...
Kurt,
We had heard some great things about the Sugarhouse area so we checked that out. It's cool.
To broaden the scope, we have narrowed it to the area of: East of State Street and North of 80. We really like the area around the Avenues but $$$. Sugarhouse was cool as was the area of 15th/15th. Around the Univ. was also neat.
Anyone have any other suggestions?
All nice areas for sure, can't say anything bad about any of those. University traffic can be pretty nasty in the mornings, afternoons and ball games, but generally its nothing major. Paul May lives right below the campus, very cool house in a neat neighborhood. He might have an opinion there. Sugarhouse is great too, historically its had inflated home values but now is obviously a great time to buy.
Kurt: you are in Sandy right? That was a nice area as well but it might be a long commute for me to MMP. I am hoping to keep the commute at around 45 minutes or so.
Yup, love the area, 10 minutes or less from the mouth of Big or Little Cottonwood Canyons but as noted the drive to the MMP is a haul. I plan on an hour when I am working out there, I can usually do it in ~50 minutes but with any traffic and hour is par.
Give me a call when you get a minute, I'd love to catch up!