https://kjzz.com/news/eye-on-your-money/utah-real-estate-market-more-favorable-to-buyers-as-new-year-begins
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SALT LAKE CITY (KUTV) – Buying a home in Utah has been a challenge since the COVID-19 pandemic, especially for first-time buyers facing high prices and limited options, but conditions have shifted as 2026 gets underway.
At the start of the new year, the Utah real estate market is more favorable to buyers than sellers, according to local agents. There are more houses on the market now than this time last year, and new incentives from builders and sellers give buyers more leverage than they have had in years.
That shift helped Connor Last, age 29, buy his first home at the end of 2025.
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“For me, it represents a way to break free and build generational wealth,” Last said of his newly-built house in Utah County.
Last said he chose the neighborhood in part because the developer offered incentives that made the purchase more affordable.
“It was a good deal. I jumped on it as soon as I could,” he said.
The biggest incentive was a reduced mortgage rate.
“This house got locked in at 4.99% interest rate,” Last said.
Cheri Salazar, the real estate agent who helped Last find the home, said builders and sellers are increasingly offering incentives to attract buyers.
“Builders are offering incredible incentives,” Salazar said.
Salazar said on paper, the Utah housing market is approaching what many consider a buyer’s market, traditionally defined as having more than six months’ worth of inventory.
In her opinion, Utah is in a buyer’s market already.
“Some would say we are not quite there because we are not seeing six months of inventory. However, I think that is an outdated statistic,” she said.
She said buyers now have far more negotiating power than they did just a year ago.
“We are seeing a lot of seller concessions right now. A lot of buyers are getting their closing costs covered by the sellers and also getting interest rate buy-downs by sellers,” she said.
The number of homes for sale in Utah is up 18% compared with this time last year, according to the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.
Another big reason sellers are offering more concessions is that houses are taking longer to sell.
Earlier in 2025, Salazar said homes typically sold within 30 to 40 days. Now, she said, the average is closer to 60 to 69 days on the market in both Salt Lake and Utah counties.
The large inventory of homes on the market was likely also fueled by the fact that home prices in Utah remain high, along with interest rates on home loans, which are hovering above 6%. In Salt Lake County, the median price of a house from January to November 2025 reached $620,000 – a 1% increase over the prior year, according to the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.
Salazar said those factors and general economic uncertainty caused many buyers to postpone their plans to purchase a house.
“They are looking at the market going, ‘What if I don’t have a job next year? What if I don’t have the ability to pay for my home? What if something happens to the stock market and everything goes crazy?’” she said.
All the above factors add up to a market where sellers are more willing to negotiate, and buyers have more power.
“Right now is a nice time for buyers to get into the market,” Salazar said.
Last, whose job requires frequent international trips, said he plans to offset his mortgage costs by renting out most of the bedrooms in his house.
“I’m going to be living in one of the bedrooms and renting out the other three bedrooms,” he said.
Looking ahead, Last said he hopes to turn his first purchase into a long-term investment.
“I’m going to keep this as a rental, try to buy other properties and grow a portfolio,” he said.
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