Experts predict that Utah’s housing market will continue to see high demand in 2026, with one national group ranking it among the top cities in the country for new buyer opportunities.
But a Utah researcher cautions that uncertainty over interest rates and construction costs makes the prognosticator’s crystal ball hazy.
“Prices [will] look pretty similar to this year,” said Dejan Eskic, a senior research fellow at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute whose focuses include housing, but he includes a key caveat.
“Honestly, we have no idea what’s going to happen,” he said, largely because there isn’t clarity or stability around tariffs or the economy in general.
In 2025, Utah’s housing prices remained among the highest in the country, with a median November listing price of $579,000, tying Utah with New Hampshire for the seventh-most expensive market, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
The Utah Association of Realtors puts the typical sale price lower at $521,800.
Those high prices are compounded by high interest rates, which Eskic argued won’t really come down without a recession. Until they do, he said, the market is still “unaffordable” for most people.
The National Association of Realtors, though, expects mortgage rates to ease slightly to 6%, enabling thousands more households to qualify for a loan on a median-priced home.
That’s among the reasons the organization rated Salt Lake City as one of its housing hot spots — cities where buyers returning to the market can afford new listings even among high demand — for 2026, said Nadia Evangelou, a senior economist and the group’s director of real estate research.
Salt Lake City has a high percentage of millennials, Evangelou said, who are in their prime homebuying years but have “delayed buying over the past few years because rates were just too high.”
Utah’s capital also has favorable job and income growth, she said, which gives residents staying power and helps offset higher home prices.
But what really makes Salt Lake City special right now, Evangelou said, is that new inventory is coming to the market at prices that match area incomes.
The number of listings aligned with area incomes increased by 20.7% this year, the National Association of Realtors’ report says, and Evangelou said that’s one of the biggest improvements anywhere in the country.
That matters because it means the “right homes” are for sale, and that makes affordability real instead of “just on paper.”
Salt Lake City also had fast growth in people getting mortgage loans, she said, at 9.4%.
“Buyers aren’t just talking about coming back,” Evangelou said. “They’re actually applying for loans — and getting homes.”
Note to readers • Megan Banta is The Salt Lake Tribune’s data enterprise reporter, a philanthropically supported position. The Tribune retains control over all editorial decisions.