Utah Home Prices Going to Crash?
Are Utah home prices going to crash?
I would like to purchase another rental property in 2026, so naturally, I, like many of you, puzzled over whether 2026 is the right time to buy a home in Utah. After days of research, conversations with home builders, economic experts, and a state legislator, I will articulate several reasons why the Utah housing market will continue to rise for years to come.
Demand
Utah has slowly been amassing a mountain of housing shortage. For years, we have underbuilt. This is not new news, though. Headlines explaining the housing shortage in Utah have been printed in news outlets for the better part of a decade. One might reasonably assume that by Q4 of 2025 we must surely be generating a surplus of homes, right? Wrong. Recent numbers show we have pulled 22,000 building permits for new homes, while studies suggest we need to build 28,000 per year to keep up with demand. That is still a deficit of 6,000 units annually.
But what drives the demand? The state of Utah has been growing for years. Let's peel back the drivers of growth.
Driver 1: Families
It is no secret that Utahns like "big" families. While Utah families may be smaller now than in the 1970s. and certainly smaller than in the 1870s, Utahns still have relatively large families. In fact, according to Business Insider, Utah has the highest number of children per family of any other state in the US. This simple fact pushes population growth exponentially, not linearly.
As time goes on, Utah's current population will continue to grow as long as the fundamental structure of the family continues to be incorporated into households. While this is a contributing factor, there are other significant factors that also contribute to Utah's growth.
Driver 2: Cultural Rise
In 1985, Larry Miller bought the Jazz and moved the professional basketball team to Utah. In 1995, it was announced Utah would be the host of the 2002 Winter Olympics. In 2002, the Olympics proved to be a global hit. In 2004, Utah landed another major league sports team in Real Salt Lake. From 2007 to the present, tech giants have sprouted from the fertile soils of the Silicon Slopes, bringing billions of international dollars to the state. In 2019, Post Malone, one of the biggest names in entertainment, decided to call Utah home and has been vocal about his love for the state. In 2023, the PGA announced Utah would host a PGA tour event for the first time in over sixty years. In 2024, Utah was awarded a second opportunity to host the Winter Olympics, which will take place in 2034. Also in 2024, the NHL announced that Utah would be getting yet another major league team in the Utah Mammoth. As of writing this in December of 2025, KSL News has reported that Utah plans to build an MLB stadium in anticipation that the state will be awarded a team as soon as 2029.
Is all of this driving growth? Maybe, I would more comfortably contend that these are actually results of growth. While Utah has been, and still is, small in population, there is a mountain of evidence suggesting that the nation and world recognize just how special Utah is. Billions and billions of dollars come into the economy from customers, investors, and businesses that did not grow up in Utah. These are folks who have seen the cultural rise taking place and wanted to be part of it.
Driver 3: Beauty
You can't mention Utah and not think of the breathtaking beauty that is synonymous with it. Utah Arch, the Great Salt Lake, the Rocky Mountains, Park CIty, Lake Powell, and, of course, all five of our national parks, draw millions of visitors annually from all parts of the earth. Many of these visitors end up falling in love with the views and recreational opportunities that Utah provides. Just last week, I was at a gathering of real estate professionals and spoke a representative from a large construction firm. He was originally from Dallas, TX. He cited the proximity to outdoor activity as the sole reason for relocating. He said, "I live in downtown Salt Lake City and am still only a few mintues from everything I like to do." That opportunity is so rare that people are uprooting their lives to make it their reality.
If you are doubting the pull that Utah's beauty has on the population, just read some of these stats:
Zion National Park receives between 4.5-5 million visitors every year.
Park City gets roughly 3.7 million visitors each year.
Lake Powell sees 5.2 million visitors each year.
These are just a few highlights. You might be thinking, "a lot of those are domestic visitors," and that is the point! People love going to these places. I grew up in Utah and still love going to the attractions that are all over the state. It makes total sense that people who grew up elsewhere are smitten by the unique landscape Utah offers.
Driver 4: Economy
At the end of the day, people can love the mountains, the lifestyle, and the culture all they want, but none of that sustains long-term growth unless the economy works. Utah’s does. Not just marginally, Utah’s economy has quietly become one of the strongest, most resilient engines in the entire country.
For years now, Utah has consistently ranked among the top states for job creation, wage growth, business formation, and economic stability. We weathered the 2008 recession better than most. We rebounded from COVID faster than almost everyone. And while many states are currently wrestling with shrinking labor pools and slowing growth, Utah is still expanding. Why does this matter for housing? Because jobs are demand. Paychecks are demand. Business expansion is demand. And Utah keeps producing all three.
One of the biggest shifts over the last 15–20 years has been the rise of the Silicon Slopes. What started as a few scrappy startups has turned into a full-blown tech ecosystem that now competes nationally. Companies like Qualtrics, Adobe, Pluralsight, Podium, and Entrata didn’t just create jobs, they created entire career pipelines. Engineering, sales, marketing, finance, HR, data science; all of it feeds housing demand at every price point. However, Utah’s economy isn’t one-dimensional. That’s what makes it so dangerous. We aren’t dependent on one single industry. Construction, healthcare, logistics, higher education, defense, outdoor recreation, tourism, and financial services. All of them are real pillars here. When one sector slows, others keep the machine moving.
Another quiet but powerful force is where the money is coming from. More and more Utah employers are tied to national and global revenue, not just local dollars. That means when someone relocates here for work, they often bring a California or East Coast income and plug it directly into a Utah cost structure. That gap alone continues to push pricing pressure upward.
And then there’s population quality, not in a moral sense, but in an economic sense. Utah consistently produces one of the youngest workforces in the country, which means employers aren’t just moving here for today’s labor pool; they’re moving here for the next 20 years of it. Long-term workforce confidence creates long-term real estate confidence.
This is why you don’t see the boom-and-bust volatility here that you see in places like Vegas, Phoenix, or parts of Florida. Utah doesn’t spike as fast, but it also doesn’t collapse the same way. Our growth is slower, steadier, and far more structural.
My Conclusion
When I look at 2026 as a potential purchase window for another rental, I don’t just see interest rates and cap rates. I see:
Expanding employers
A deepening talent pool
National money flowing into local jobs
And a housing pipeline that still cannot keep up
That combination is the very definition of price support. You can’t have sustained real estate growth without a sustained economy beneath it. Utah has that foundation, and it’s getting stronger, not weaker.
