A majority of homebuyers in Utah and around the country are expanding their search beyond local housing markets largely to save money, according to a new analysis.
Dubbed “Affordability Refugees,” the cross-market house hunters now account for 60% of buyers in the nation’s 100 largest metropolitan areas, up from around 48% in 2019, the Realtor.com analysis showed.
“Affordability retains shoppers when present, pulls them in from pricier markets, and pushes them out once it’s gone,” Realtor.com senior economist Jiayi Xu said in a Tuesday post about the findings.
The numbers are the highest in the West, where 65% of home shoppers looked at outlying listings in the second quarter of 2026, Realtor.com said. Next up was the South, at 59.8%, followed by the Northeast, at 58.3%, and Midwest, at 56.1%.
Priced out of Salt Lake City’s housing market
Salt Lake City was highlighted in the analysis, along with Denver and Durham, North Carolina, as examples of the country’s midtier “previously budget-friendly metros” where local residents are being priced out.
More than 70% of first-quarter homebuyers this year in Salt Lake City, Denver and Durham turned to neighboring metropolitan areas that offer properties typically priced 5% to 15% less, Realtor.com reported.
For Salt Lake City area residents, the analysis identified Ogden as the top alternative area to shop for a cheaper place. In Denver, budget-conscious buyers favored Colorado Springs, while in Durham, Raleigh was the pick for deals.
Longtime Ogden real estate agent Michelle Williams told the Deseret News she’s seeing more clients from Salt Lake City, including a couple who are set to close next week on a “great little bungalow” on Ogden’s East Bench.
“They started out looking in Salt Lake, Millcreek, Sugar House. They even mentioned Draper,” Williams said. “They decided they could find more attainable housing in Ogden. Once they got here, they realized they actually loved the community. They loved the vibe.”
The pair, a surgical manager at a Salt Lake hospital and a University of Utah law school student who’s also working, are willing to commute because, she said, they “don’t want to be house poor. They don’t want to spend all their money on housing.”
‘Awesome and affordable’ places to live
What they found in Ogden was comparable to a bungalow in Salt Lake City’s trendy Sugar House neighborhood, Williams said, but “they’re probably getting this property for — this is not an exaggeration — $200,000 less.”
In July, the Utah Association of Realtors listed the average sales price for a home in Salt Lake County at $694,113, a 6.1% increase from the same month a year earlier. In Weber County, where Ogden is the county seat, the average sales price dropped 5.2% in July, to $520,969.
“Years ago, it used to be that people from Salt Lake would never consider living in Ogden. It was just like kind of not the cool place to be. But now, that mentality is changing quite a bit,” said Williams, the association’s treasurer.
The reason? “I think it’s money,” she said, adding the shift in attitude is likely here to stay.
“This is something we’ll see more and more of as people start migrating to Salt Lake for different things. I think they’re going to start looking farther and farther out,” Williams said, similar to the housing market in Southern California, where she grew up.
“The closer you are to Salt Lake, the more expensive it is,” she said, but buyers are becoming aware that “there are other areas outside of Salt Lake that are awesome and affordable for people.”