Wasatch Front New-Home Concessions Rise to 68% of Sales

Utah Market Data

Concessions on New Homes Rise to 68% of Sales

We pulled every home that sold on the Wasatch Front from January through October from the Utah MLS and split new construction from resale. The MLS records seller concessions (money the seller gives the buyer at closing, usually toward closing costs) on each sale. The Wasatch Front here means Salt Lake, Utah, Davis and Weber counties.

68.3% of New Homes Sold With Concessions

There were 2,174 new homes sold on the Wasatch Front through October, and 1,485 of them, or 68.3%, came with seller concessions. That is up from 61.2% over the same months last year. Resale homes went from 61.7% to 64.0%. A year ago the two groups were half a point apart, and now new homes are 4.3 points higher.

The median concession on a new home was $10,716, about 2.1% of the sale price, up from $10,000 a year ago. The median on resale homes stayed at $10,000.

Concessions of $20,000 or More

Larger concessions grew faster. On the Wasatch Front, 281 new-home sales came with $20,000 or more. That is 12.9% of new-home sales, up from 8.9% a year ago, while 5.2% of resale homes got that much.

Spread across every new-home sale, including the ones with no concessions, sellers gave $8,976 per home. That is up 21.9% from $7,363. Resale sellers gave $6,816 per home.

By Property Type

Detached new homes saw the biggest change. Of the 1,159 that sold, 66.6% had concessions, up from 56.8%. The median concession was $14,000, and 19.6% got $20,000 or more, compared with 6.3% of detached resale homes. New detached homes also cost more, with a median price of $679,775 against $590,000 for resale, so part of the dollar gap comes from price.

New townhomes went from 63.6% to 70.5% with concessions, at a median of $9,500. That is about the same as resale townhomes, at 71.0%.

By County

Salt Lake County had the largest jump. Concessions came with 73.1% of its 625 new-home sales, up from 62.2%, and the median amount rose to $13,107 from $11,617.

In Utah County, the largest new-home market on the Wasatch Front, 71.7% of 1,231 new-home sales had concessions, up from 62.1%. The median held at $10,000.

Weber County went the other way, falling to 39.9% from 55.4% on 233 sales. Davis County had only 85 new-home sales, too few to read much into.

What These Numbers Leave Out

Listing agents enter the seller concession amount in the MLS when a sale closes. That field may not include rate buydowns paid through a builder's own lender, and it does not show discounts off the base price or free upgrades. Some builders also sell homes without listing them in the MLS. These figures are the low end of what builders are giving.

National builders report much larger totals. These are nationwide figures, not Utah numbers. Lennar said its incentives ran about 12% of the sale price across its markets in results released September 17. In the October National Association of Home Builders survey of builders across the country, 65% offered incentives and 43% cut prices, by an average of 6%.

The Bottom Line

New homes on the Wasatch Front sold with seller concessions 68.3% of the time through October, up from 61.2% last year, while resale rose to 64.0% from 61.7%. Concessions of $20,000 or more came with 12.9% of new-home sales, more than twice the 5.2% resale rate. These are recorded seller concessions only, so the full value of builder incentives is higher.

_{Single-family includes homes, townhomes, twin homes, and condos.}

_{Data sourced from UtahRealEstate.com (WFRMLS) closed single-family sales in Salt Lake, Utah, Davis and Weber counties, January 1 to October 31 of 2025 and 2026, pulled November 4, 2026. New construction is based on the MLS new-construction field. Concessions are seller concessions recorded on each sale. National figures (not Utah-specific) from the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (October 2026) and Lennar third-quarter results (September 17, 2026). UtahInvestor.com analysis.}

Sold Multi-Units This Week

Eight multi-unit properties closed across Utah between October 27 and November 2. Prices ran from $310,000 to $1,392,500. Six were duplexes, one was a fourplex and one was a 15-unit building. Four sold below their final asking price, two sold at asking and two sold above. A 15-unit Salt Lake City building built in 1905 sold for $1,392,500, about $92,800 per unit, after 216 days on the market and a cut from its original $2,100,000 asking price. A Herriman fourplex built in 2018 sold at its $1,200,000 asking price in 5 days.

Mortgage Rates & Financing

Mortgage rates eased again this week. The 30-year fixed is at 7.30%, down 0.03 from a week ago and 0.27 from a month ago. It is still 0.96 above a year ago and 0.31 below its 52-week high of 7.61%. The 15-year fixed is at 6.91%, FHA is at 6.95% and jumbo loans are at 7.45%. The 7/6 SOFR ARM fell 0.14 to 6.71%, which is 0.59 under the 30-year fixed.

The 10-year Treasury closed at 4.95% on November 3, down from 4.99% a week earlier. On November 2 it closed at 4.91%, its lowest close since September 9. The Federal Reserve held its benchmark rate at 3.75% to 4% on October 28 in a 10 to 2 vote, and both members who voted no wanted a rate increase. Investor loans usually price 0.50 to 0.75 above the owner-occupied 30-year, which puts a rental purchase near 7.80% to 8.05% right now.

_{Source: Mortgage News Daily, rates as of November 3, 2026. 10-year Treasury yield from the U.S. Treasury daily yield curve. Fed decision from the Federal Reserve, October 28, 2026.}

Utah Headlines

Salt Lake County Home Sales Fell 27.6% in October, Early Numbers Show — Preliminary figures from the Salt Lake Board of Realtors show 771 sales in October against 1,065 a year earlier, a gap the board expects to narrow as late sales are reported, while the county's September median price slipped $5,000 to $550,000.

105 Affordable Apartments Open on Salt Lake City's West Side, With 1,000 More Being Built Nearby — Latitude Apartments at 940 W. 200 South cost nearly $39 million and rents only to households earning 60% of area median income or less, and about 1,000 more units are under construction between North Temple and I-80.

Wasatch Front Rental Supply Grew 35% to 41% Since 2014 — A report by economist James Wood for the Rental Housing Association of Utah found rental inventory grew 41.4% in Salt Lake County, 38.8% in Utah County and 35.0% in Davis County through July, compared with 21.5% in Cache County, where vacancy is 5.5%.

Utah Voters Reject Amendment B on Tax Initiatives — The Associated Press called the measure as failed on election night, so citizen ballot initiatives that raise taxes will still pass with a simple majority instead of the 60% the amendment would have required.

National Headlines

Salt Lake City Apartment Completions Drop 63.5% This Year — RentCafe expects 2,814 new apartments in the Salt Lake City metro in 2026, the fourth-steepest drop of any U.S. metro, as national completions in buildings of 50 or more units fall 27% to about 442,000.

Banks Tightened Apartment Loan Standards in October — In the Fed's October survey of bank loan officers, 14.1% of banks tightened standards on apartment loans and 5.3% eased them, while 31.6% reported weaker demand, reversing the easing banks reported in April.

Apartment Cap Rates Rose to 5.9% as Prices Fell 4.6% — MSCI data show the average apartment cap rate (yearly net income divided by price) rose 20 basis points over the year, and sales of individual properties fell 12% to $34.3 billion in the third quarter.

U.S. Rental Vacancy Climbs to 7.6% — Census data show rental vacancy rose again in the third quarter as renter households grew by only 70,000 from a year ago, compared with about 800,000 more owner households.

U.S. Home Prices Fell for the First Time in More Than Three Years — Redfin's median sale price slipped 0.1% to $389,601 in the four weeks ending October 25, and pending sales fell 15.9% to the lowest level since its records began in 2021.

Apartment Lender Arbor Suspends Its Dividend as Bad Loans Climb — Arbor Realty Trust lost $85.4 million in the third quarter as nonperforming loans rose to 32 worth $647.6 million, and 93% of its $12 billion loan book is short-term bridge loans, with 71% on apartments.

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