Utah housing prices are apparently appealing to investors.
A new ranking by Realtor.com puts Utah at No. 4 for states that had the highest percentage of homes purchased by investors in 2024. Only Missouri, Oklahoma and Kansas beat Utah’s 18% share of investor buyers.
Missouri topped the list with a 21.2% share, a 0.3% increase from 2023, followed by Oklahoma at 18.7%, up 0.2%; and Kansas at 18.4%, up 1%. Utah’s 18% share is a 0.3% increase from 2023.
Rounding out the top 10 were Georgia, Montana, Mississippi, Wyoming, Indiana and Alabama.
“The thing that almost all of these states have in common is relatively low prices,” Martin Orefice, CEO of Rent To Own Labs, told Realtor.com in a Monday posting about where investors are “snapping up” properties.
“That means that investors can get good deals on existing properties, especially residential ones,” Orefice said. “With homeownership being harder and harder to achieve, more people are being forced to rent to make ends meet, and these investors are cashing in.”
Nationwide, 13% of all homes sold last year were bought by an investor, according to the posting, a number that’s said to be up slightly from 2023, but lower than the 13.3% reported in 2022.
The business of investing in properties to rent out is increasingly focused on the most affordable areas, according to the site.
“Investors are keenly aware of economic growth and housing demand, but must balance home price with potential returns,” Hannah Jones, Realtor.com’s senior economic research analyst said.
In what was labeled “a slightly troubling sign,” the site pointed out that all-cash investor sales have hit the lowest level since 2008. Still, more than 60% of investor sales are cash only, compared to about a third of all sales.
Earlier this month, Realtor.com reported that a typical investor paid $282,000 for a home, more than $70,000 less than the national median sales price. The numbers show investors “gravitate toward the most affordable markets and are drawn to cheaper properties,” the site said.
While that may increase profits, it pits investors against individual homebuyers, especially those struggling to find affordable housing as prices and mortgage rates continue to remain high.
“As a result, budget-conscious buyers often find themselves in direct competition with investors for the most affordable properties, a contest many are unable to win,” Jones said.
Legislation aimed at making it harder for investors to quickly buy up houses that otherwise might be purchased by first-time homebuyers failed to advance during the 2025 session of the Utah Legislature.
HB151, sponsored by Rep. Gay Lynn Bennion, D-Cottonwood Heights, called for buyers of single-family homes in Salt Lake County to sign an affidavit stating that’s where they would live for at least a year.
“Investors are cutting into home ownership in negative ways,” Bennion testified. “Some investors use algorithms, some bring cash, but they all push out the individual who is coming into home ownership for the first time and doesn’t have those tools and experience.”
The owner occupancy requirement in the bill only applied to sales made within the first 30 days a property was on the market and could have been avoided if sellers claimed an exigent circumstance related to financial difficulty.
Opponents of what Bennion described as raising a “moral question” around investor sales said the bill would have wrongly placed the onus on sellers to support the state’s efforts to provide more affordable housing.