Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
SALT LAKE CITY — Home prices are high, and so are mortgage rates.
That might make you wonder, who's actually able to buy houses in Utah right now?
New numbers show how many buyers in the Beehive state are paying cash – and how many are investors.
Nationwide Investor Data by marjones
According to John Burns Research and Consulting, which closely tracks the housing market, investors are playing a bigger role in Utah than they have.
What the data says
The latest data from the fourth quarter of 2023 shows 25% of houses in the Salt Lake market were sold to an investor. It was slightly higher than that in Utah County, at 26.8%.
Those numbers have risen over the last few years, according to the data, but they're still below the national average and other nearby cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix.
Many investors also pay cash. According to UtahRealEstate.com, just under 1 in 5 buyers in Utah paid cash for their home in 2023. It was the same percentage in 2022, but it's up notably from 2020 when cash buyers accounted for just 11.8% of Utah's market.
"The market is challenging, so we have less buyers in general," said Dejan Eskic, a housing analyst at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute at the University of Utah. "Those cash buyers right now are not impacted by interest rates because they have the cash – they're not financing it – so their share is higher a little bit than usual."
Right now, the national average for mortgage rates is 7.43%, according to Mortgage News Daily. The median price for a home in Utah is hovering around $500,000, Eskic said.
Chris Call rents a townhouse in Saratoga Springs with his wife, Char, and their three young boys. They're happy to have a place, but they wish they could find one of their own.
"The prices are just so high," Call said, "and the interest rates are so high."
The market is definitely discouraging, but he's trying to stay optimistic long term.
"I'm hoping that there's something that can happen to allow me to get my family into a house," said Call.
