Aidan Mortensen, KOAL News
“It’s called the American dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it,” proclaimed George Carlin in his 2005 special “Life is Worth Losing.” This was considered a scathing critique of the political world at the time, but now, this statement rings especially true regarding the housing market. In recent years, Utah has seen a mass inflation in housing costs, but what led to this? And how can it be fixed?
The Numbers
In 2016, the average house price in Carbon County, Utah, was $134,000. In 2024, that average has almost doubled to $267,000 based on Federal Reserve Economic Data research. In the same time frame, the average household income in Carbon County has only risen from $46,366 to $51,725, according to Data USA.
But what caused this rapid inflation within the housing market? Looking again at data from the Federal Reserve, this increase started in 2018 to 2019, when the market saw its first big jump with an increase of $12,000. This upward trend continues to this day despite the U.S. only having one year of recession in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The biggest jump we’ve seen in recent years came from 2021 to 2022 when average prices skyrocketed by almost $52,000.
Experts attribute this rise in cost to a variety of factors. The Utah Association of Realtors attributes part of the problem to a supply issue:” Utah has about 53,000 more households than it has housing units. This is driving up home prices.” Another factor contributing to high housing prices is a record low resale market for houses, with many available houses bought by out-of-state residents looking to work remotely from Utah.
Housing prices aren’t the only thing affected by this, as rent prices also increase in the area. From 2022 to 2023 the fair market rent prices rose in Carbon County by 9.11% according to Rent Data.org.
Applying the same metric to Emery County, you can see an identical jump of 9.11%.
Local Impact
We had the chance to speak with a few residents of Carbon and Emery County who have struggled to find affordable housing, with one resident sharing his story saying,” After we got married, my Wife and I searched all over Emery and Carbon County looking for a place that wasn’t over $1000 a month in rent or over $200,000, and we couldn’t find anything. We searched for about a year and a half, and the only reason we were able to find a house that we could afford was because we found a family we knew who sold to us directly.”
Another resident shared her experience with the housing market, saying,” Adults in their mid-20s are struggling to find a place that’s not $1200 a month. And on top of that, nobody replies and we’ve had places rented out from underneath us even after touring and setting things up to move in.”
The Solution?
In December of 2023, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox announced a plan for the state to build 35,000 starter homes by 2028. Gov. Cox also allotted $29.5 billion to achieve this goal. In addition to this goal, Cox allocated $50 million to the Utah First-time Homebuyer Assistance Program, a program launched in 2022 which, according to the state Senate website,” Help individuals and families receive a loan of up to $20,000 to buy down interest rates, apply funds toward a down payment or pay closing costs on a first home.” However, to qualify for this loan, homeowners must buy a house costing up to $450,000 and a newly built house or a house that has never been occupied.
In addition to this, the state has seen a small drop in interest rates from 2023 to 2024, going from a peak of 8% to 7.862% as of the time of writing, with rates expected to drop gradually throughout the year.
Another initiative aimed at creating more affordable housing is being run by the nonprofit organization Epicenter, which has started developing the Canal Commons, a 10-unit neighborhood that is being built to aid Epicenter’s Come Home to Green River initiative which was launched earlier this year.
Time will only tell how Utah, and especially rural Utah, will recover from the housing crisis. However, with the initiatives and legislation that have been created in response to this, one has to think we’re trending in the right direction.
Mining with KOAL is a new investigative journalism series for Castle Country Radio. For suggestions or tips email news@koal.net.