Utah's housing market is telling two stories so far in 2026. Single-family is steady. Multi-unit is soft. The May data from UtahRealEstate.com shows both. The year-to-date numbers tell it best, because they smooth out the bounce a single month can give you.

Sellers listed more homes this year, and buyers mostly kept up. New listings are up 3.3% year-to-date, with 26,529 homes on the market through May versus 25,683 a year ago. Closed sales are up just 1.4% (15,459 versus 15,248). So the extra supply is getting absorbed, but barely.

Prices are still climbing at a slow, steady pace. The median sale price year-to-date is $519,000, up 2.0% from $508,995. That is normal, healthy growth, not the double-digit jumps of a few years ago.

Homes are taking a bit longer to sell, 68 days year-to-date versus 62 a year ago, up 9.7%. Buyers have a little more time than last spring. One May figure looks rough: closed sales fell 11.1% from May 2025. But that is a single month against a strong year-ago number, and the year-to-date count is still positive, so we would not read much into it yet.

The multi-unit market is weaker. This is every property on the MLS with two or more units, and it is a low-volume slice, so we will keep our read light. Just 187 multi-unit properties have closed statewide all year.

The year-to-date trend points down. Closed sales are off 7.9% (187 versus 203 a year ago). The median price is down 3.6%, to $657,500 from $682,000. And properties are sitting far longer: 83 days versus 59 a year ago, up 40.7%. New listings are up 5.1%, so supply is growing while sales shrink. That is the opposite of what a seller wants.

The May median did pop to $700,250, up 7.7% from a year ago. Do not be fooled. On a few dozen sales, one or two large deals move the median. The year-to-date read is the honest one, and it is negative.

Strip out the bigger commercial buildings and look only at duplexes, triplexes, and fourplexes, and the softness gets sharper. This is the slice many individual investors actually buy, because two-to-four unit property still qualifies for a regular residential mortgage. Five units and up needs commercial financing.

Most of the volume lives here: 165 of this year's 187 multi-unit closings were 2-4 unit deals. And they are weaker than the broader group. Closed sales are down 11.8% year-to-date, a steeper drop than the full group's 7.9%. The median price is down 6.3%, to $613,200. Days on market are up 41.1%, to 79 from 56. The part of the market buyers can finance the easy way is cooling fastest.

The bright spot across multi-unit: pending sales rose in May, up 28.8% for the full group and 11.3% for 2-4 unit deals. Pending sales are signed but not yet closed, so they hint at firmer summer closings if they hold.

If you own single-family, you are in good shape. Price to today's comps and your home will sell, just slower than last year. Build a few extra weeks into your timeline.

If you own a duplex, triplex, or fourplex and want to sell, price is everything right now. There is more competition than a year ago, buyers are taking their time, and this slice is softening fastest. The deals that close are priced right from day one. Meet the market and you can still move a property. Fight it and you rack up days on market and a price cut.

Single-family is steady - modest price growth, slightly slower sales, a touch more buyer leverage. Multi-unit is softer, and the 2-4 unit slice softest of all on a year-to-date basis. The jump in May pending sales is the one sign worth watching. Next month we will see whether those pending deals turn into closings.

_{Data sourced from UtahRealEstate.com / WFRMLS May 2026 Monthly Metrics (single-family, multi-unit 2+ unit, and 2-4 unit reports).}

Mortgage rates barely moved this week. The 30-year fixed sits at 6.57%, down 4 basis points (0.04 percentage points) from a week ago. Step back, though, and the picture is mixed: rates are up 13 basis points over the past month but down 39 basis points from a year ago. The 7/6 adjustable-rate mortgage is at 6.14%, a 43-basis-point discount to the 30-year fixed. (An adjustable-rate loan starts with a fixed rate, here for seven years, then resets.) That gap is worth a look if you plan to refinance or sell a multi-unit property within seven years.

The 10-year Treasury yield closed at 4.462%, up a touch from the prior day's 4.446%. Yields spiked near 4.69% in mid-May and have eased back since. Mortgage rates track the 10-year closely, so that pullback is what kept the 30-year fixed flat to lower this week. Keep an eye on the 10-year: if it keeps drifting down, mortgage rates should follow.

Source: Mortgage News Daily/Market Watch

Utah Headlines

Salt Palace to Go Dark for 3 Years as $1.8 Billion Downtown Rebuild Begins — Salt Lake County will fully close the Salt Palace Convention Center beginning in fall 2027 for a three-year reconstruction tied to a $1.8 billion downtown sports and entertainment district, idling a venue that hosts about 200 conventions a year and generates roughly $100 million in annual tax revenue.

Ogden Weighs Park Versus Housing on Former School Site — Ogden is deciding whether to spend about $950,000 to keep 2.6 acres of a shuttered elementary school as green space or sell the land for new homes, a small but telling version of the open-space-versus-density fight now playing out across the Wasatch Front.

National Headlines

Investor Home Purchases Drop to Lowest Level Since 2020 — U.S. investor home purchases fell 6% year-over-year in the first quarter to their lowest level since 2020, and investors now hold just 7.8% of all listings, the smallest share in five years, as higher costs and a cooling rental market squeeze returns.

Multifamily Investment Tops $170 Billion, Leading Every Other CRE Sector — Apartments drew about $170 billion of investment in 2025, more than a third of all U.S. commercial real estate volume, cementing multifamily as the most resilient sector even as capital chases data centers and industrial.

Apartment Supply Glut Starts to Ease, and Utah Ranks Among the Strongest Markets — Operators say the record wave of new apartment supply is finally being absorbed and concessions are narrowing, with one national manager naming Utah among its top-performing markets this spring alongside Texas, Virginia, and Washington.

Single-Family Construction Slips Nationwide While Multifamily Holds Up — Single-family construction fell across every U.S. geography in the first quarter, led by a 16% year-over-year drop in large metro core counties, while multifamily building grew 20.8% in those same urban cores, according to NAHB's latest Home Building Geography Index.

Fed Signals a Shift From Rate Cuts Toward a Possible Hike — The Fed is moving from an easing bias toward neutral and a few officials are even floating a rate hike, Redfin reports, after core PCE inflation ticked up to 3.3% with Friday's May jobs report still to come.

Home Insurance Costs Jump 24%, Adding Pressure to Investor Underwriting — Average U.S. homeowners insurance premiums climbed 24% between 2021 and 2024 to $3,303 a year, and top $6,000 in states like Louisiana and Nebraska, a rising carrying cost that eats directly into rental property cash flow.

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David Robinson - Principal Broker | Investor