SALT LAKE CITY — The "State of the State’s Housing Market" report was released Tuesday by the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah, and it has some good and bad news.
The good news: Housing prices have remained stable for the past two years, increasing only 1% since 2022.
The bad news: Utah remains the ninth most expensive housing market in the nation. The median sales price of a single-family home is $547,700.
Housing prices remain seriously to severely unaffordable in Utah's five largest counties. But rents showed little change in 2024, and in fact, declined in some areas.
The report predicts the median sales price of single-family homes will increase 2 percent this year, while sales of existing homes will drop 3 percent, and residential construction will remain flat.
"There are winners and losers in the housing market, and right now, the advantage really is to the renter, where rents have actually in some markets have gone down and very heavy concessions, where landlords and owners are giving up significant amount of rent in order to keep people in their projects," said Jim Wood, an economist with the Gardner Institute
Jim Wood is an economist with the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, specializing in the housing market.
He says what we are seeing is a correction of the market, after the COVID-19 pandemic, which up-ended many markets. He says Utah's housing market is tied to the state's overall job market, which has cooled recently.
"People move for jobs, and it's net in-migration that is a huge component of the demand for new housing. So if net-in migration tails off a bit, so will the demand for housing, and as the demand lessens, decreases, housing prices will be more stable," Wood said.
Click here to read the full report.
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