Here's how expensive Utah's housing market is compared to the rest of the U.S.
The 2024-2025 edition of the Gardner Institute's 'State of the State's Housing Market' report found Utah was the nation's ninth costliest housing market last year, citing 'high but stable' prices as characterizing the state's housing market last year.
Despite home prices rising less than 1% since 2022, the high cost is seen as continuing to put home ownership out of reach for many Utahns. Housing affordability is a priority for Gov. Spencer Cox and other state leaders.
'Utah housing prices and rents showed little-to-no growth in 2024,' Jim Wood, the lead author of the report, said in a statement. 'Home sales and listings increased, and residential construction declined as apartment developments tumbled.'
Wood, the Ivory-Boyer Senior Fellow at the Gardner Institute, said 'slower economic growth presented challenges for Utah's homebuilding and real estate industries but helped to dampen price increases for potential homebuyers.'
But Utah's median single-family home sales price of $547,700 trailed what residents are paying in only eight other states in National Association of Realtors data from the fourth quarter of 2024, the report pointed out.
Here's where that home is even more expensive than Utah:
Hawaii, $1,012,500
California, $881,800
Washington, D.C., $769,300
Massachusetts, $676,100
Washington, $669,400
Colorado, $613,200
New York, $562,400
Oregon, $561,300
Utah, the Gardner Institute noted, has steadily climbed in the rankings. Back in 1970, the Beehive State was the 20th most expensive place to buy a house. By 2000, Utah had hit No. 14. In 2022, housing prices hit an all-time high of $510,000, up 44% from 2020.
Other key findings from the Gardner Institute research:
Homes are 'seriously to severely unaffordable' in five large counties, as measured by dividing the median sales price by median household income. Washington and Salt Lake counties are considered severely unaffordable with ratios above 5.1, while Weber, Davis and Utah counties are seriously unaffordable, with ratios between 4.1 and 5.0.
Rents were also stable in 2024, even declining in some markets. In Salt Lake County, the average rent rose from $1,582 in 2023 to $1,593 in 2024, less than a 1% increase.
More high-density housing was sold than ever, with the sale of condominiums, townhomes and twin homes accounting for 28% of all residential sales and 28% of residential construction in 2024. The $409,900 median sales price of a condo statewide in 2024 was 27% less than a single-family home.
The most building permits for residential units, 1,556, were issued in Eagle Mountain. Next was Saratoga Springs, with permits for 1,354 units. Combined with the 1,036 units permitted by the fifth-ranked city, Lehi, the three northern Utah County cities accounted for 18% of all Utah residential building permits in 2024.
At the same time, less than 22,000 residential units overall received building permits in 2024. That's the lowest level since 2016, but 90% of the drop was attributed to a decline in apartment development, with permits for apartment units down to 4,801 in 2024 from 7,622 a year earlier.
Average monthly listings are back to pre-COVID-19 levels, 8,000 to 9,000. Cash buyers bought 6,724 homes in Utah last year, nearly 18% of all homes sold in the state. There were 7% more homes sold in Utah in 2024, a total of 37,641.
So what's the forecast for the Utah housing market?
'Economic uncertainty and slower rates of demographic and economic growth will lessen housing demand in 2025,' the Gardner Institute said, with residential construction, existing home sales, housing prices and mortgage rates largely staying at the same levels as 2024.
That translates this year to Utah seeing approximately 23,000 new residential units built, 36,900 existing homes sold, the median sales price of a home going up 2%, and mortgage rates staying between 6% and 7%.
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