Wendell Pierce once said that “the heart and soul of the American dream (is) homeownership, the idea of being able to buy a house and start to build your family.” Sadly, homeownership is looking more and more like a pipe dream for many young Utahns.
The median home price is rising much faster than wages, and many college students (like me) are coming to terms with the fact homeownership is not something we can look forward to in the near (or even distant) future. Unless something changes soon, we may not be able to call Utah our home for long.
This crisis is no secret. The University of Utah recently released a report for the 2022-2024 years that detailed the current housing situation. Between 2020 and 2022, there was a price increase of 49% in the average median home price here in Utah. Prices haven’t significantly dropped since then. Housing is also scarce; the report estimates that Utah will have a shortage of around 37,000 houses by 2024.
Some argue that such price gains are unsustainable in the long run, but everything I have learned in Econ 110 tells me otherwise. The shortage of housing continues to prop up the prices, leading to an even more pessimistic housing market with an ever-growing demand.
Above all, the biggest problem people face in Utah is that the vast majority of renters can’t afford a house in this market. According to the report, “Only 15% of Utah’s renter households have enough income to purchase a modestly priced $300,000 to $400,000 home” (which, let’s be honest, is the low end of the housing cost distribution). Combine all this with a high 7+% mortgage interest rate and home ownership looks hopelessly out of reach. If this continues, which every metric indicates it most likely will, this will surely have catastrophic consequences for the future generation of homeowners in Utah.
However, the winds of change are stirring. Many have expressed deep concern about these trends, and the state Legislature seems to be taking action. In the early 2023 session, the state passed six housing bills to help with housing affordability, reduce zoning restrictions and increase funding for housing assistance programs. Lawmakers have also been developing further legislation to help streamline the approval process for high-density affordable housing.
Yet, some recognize that this alone is not enough. Gov. Spencer Cox calls the affordable housing crisis the “single greatest threat to our future prosperity,” and he most recently addressed this crisis in his December 2023 budget recommendations. In the report, Cox proposed a new “Utah First Homes” initiative to build over 35,000 new starter homes by 2028. This is backed by around $150 million to be used to support various forms of housing growth across the state for the year 2025. That being said, the “Utah First Homes” program is still up in the air, waiting for the state Legislature’s approval.
While the governor certainly has lofty goals, many cities still need convincing. A recent Deseret News article reported on a legislative audit on housing; the auditors found that many local cities prioritize single-family housing and will “use their authority to stifle multifamily or high-density residential projects.” The majority of the land in Utah’s biggest cities is zoned for only single-family units, and, alarmingly, they estimated that these cities could run out of land for housing by 2050.
Cox summed up this viewpoint well when he acknowledged the fact that everyone knows that we need more high-density housing structures, “We just don’t want them built where we can see them from our back porch or our front yard …”
This NIMBYism is limiting the state from providing the housing many current and future residents desperately need. While it may be tempting to think that high-density housing should stay only in Salt Lake City or downtown Provo, current research suggests that restricting high-density to only highly urban areas would make housing even more unaffordable. It is up to cities to start zoning more high-density and multi-family housing.
As citizens, we need to support city council members willing to approve high-density housing. When high-density housing goes up near our homes, we should think twice before rallying up the HOA and storming the city hall. Everyone in the long run loses when communities lack affordable housing.
Ian Lake is a local BYU college student who is majoring in family studies. He also works as a part-time student seminary teacher for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.