Property Management Blog

What’s Happening in the Utah Housing Market? Update for Salt Lake Area investors

If I only had a crystal ball.

People ask us about the rental market here in Utah on an almost weekly basis. There is plenty of information to be found on the web, but that’s part of the problem. We have too much information. Today, we’re talking about our experiences as a property management and real estate company. These are some facts you might find interesting.

Utah Housing Shortage and Its Effects

In Utah, we have a housing shortage. We have had more population growth than we expected, and our housing does not currently support that growth. Utah has never dipped below a 60 percent home ownership rate, but we are dipping now. Builders and developers cannot keep up with the number of people who are wanting to buy homes. So, residents are turning to rentals. This is creating a demand for attractive rental properties.

We’re seeing that days on market for rentals are a lot lower. There’s also an increase in the cost per square foot. Between a studio and a three bedroom property in Salt Lake City County, rentals are averaging $1.19 to $1.25 per foot.

Year Over Year Rental Increases

We manage property in several different cities, and we always follow the published reports. This is a year over year increase as a percentage. We’re looking at median home rental prices for a three bedroom property.

South Jordan:
$1,550 rental price per month
3.3 percent rental increase

Murray:
$1,400 rental price per month
3.2 percent rental increase

Lehigh:
$1,325 rental price per month
2.3 percent rental increase

Salt Lake City:
$1,345 rental price per month
3.7 percent rental increase

The price for a Salt Lake City property is lower than we expected, but you can see that the increase from last year is dramatic.

That’s just a little information to help you understand the current state of the rental market in Utah. Forbes Magazine just reported that they expect Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Washington to continue experiencing solid gains in pricing for the rest of 2018.

There’s a lot of information and statistics out there. If you need help understanding them, or you have any questions, please contact us at Utah Property Solutions. We’d be happy to tell you more.