This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2017, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

A real estate website found that the Salt Lake City metropolitan area has the highest concentration of millennials among the nation's 60 largest housing markets.

What's more, according to Realtor.com, Salt Lake City is the "top" market for millennial homebuyers because of relative affordability and low unemployment.

The site based its scores on views of its online listings over the past eight months.

Nearly 16 percent of those living in the Salt Lake City metropolitan area — which includes Salt Lake and Tooele counties — are between the ages of 25 and 34, according to Realtor.com, compared to an average of 14 percent in other large markets and 13 percent nationwide.

The Salt Lake City metro area also has the lowest unemployment rate of the examined markets — at 2.9 percent, compared to a national rate of 4.7 percent — and is the third-most affordable.

Housing costs are 30 percent of the average salary in and around Utah's capital, Realtor.com found, behind only Buffalo (23 percent) and Albany (27 percent) in New York.

That runs somewhat counter to a narrative about a statewide housing crisis, illustrated earlier this year in a first-of-its-kind state report that found a need for 38,000 housing units for extremely low-income families.

Last month, Salt Lake City released a housing plan that said 12,500 residents living in poverty required 7,500 additional affordable housing units.

But there's little doubt the area includes an outsize share of young adults. Salt Lake City's housing plan reveals that four in 10 capital city residents are between ages 18 and 34, which Realtor.com posits is due to the draw of "the excitement of an urban city with the relaxed vibes of a mountain town."

"Large tech companies such as Adobe are attracting the millennial generation to this area by offering innovative workspaces, large salaries and an overall high quality of life," it said in a news release.

Troy Peterson, who has sold real estate in the area for 22 years and is the 2017 president of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors, said the Realtor.com findings weren't surprising to him.

"I've been looking at Salt Lake City as a sleeper city for years, just watching the expansion downtown," Peterson said.

Peterson said millennials tend to be very informed but are less likely than so-called Generation Xers — those in the 35-to-50 age bracket — to buy homes without professional help.

The full Realtor.com report is available at research.realtor.com.

Twitter: @matthew_piper —

Realtor.com's top cities for millennials

1. Salt Lake City

2. Miami

3. Orlando, Fla.

4. Seattle

5. Houston

6. Los Angeles

7. Buffalo, N.Y.

8. Albany, N.Y.

9. San Francisco

10. San Jose, Calif.