I recently attended the Urban Land Institute’s Housing Summit – Building the Future: Leadership – Housing – Community. It was tremendous. The keynote speaker, Jay Parsons, a highly regarded expert on multifamily housing in the United States, gave an excellent presentation. His website (https://jayparsons.com) and newsletter, Jay Parsons Rental Housing Economics, should be on everyone’s go-to list of multifamily data sites.

Some of the key points from Jay’s presentation:

• Nearly 25% of apartments in Salt Lake City have been built since 2020. The Rental Housing Association of Utah estimates that there were 64,500 rental units in Salt Lake City in 2025. Over 16,000 units have been constructed over the past six years.
• Elevated supply compressed rent growth in Salt Lake City beginning in mid-2023 and extending to today. The deepest trough was -4.0% in December 2025.
• Parsons estimated that today nearly 14% of stabilized apartments in Salt Lake City are offering concessions.
• Effective annual rent growth in the city from 2023-2025 was .60%. Year-to-date July-2026, it is estimated to be 4.10%.
• John Burns Consulting reports an approximate 60% discount to renting vs. owning a home in Salt Lake City (“all-in” costs: mortgage, taxes, maintenance, etc.).
• Transactional sales volume in Utah reached a peak in June-2022 and bottomed out in June-2024.

Kristen Matthews, Senior Manager/Zonda Advisory, presented Utah’s For-Sale Housing Market Trends and Insights. Ms. Matthews presented an array of information regarding SFR housing in Utah including listing trends, pricing, market performance, construction, new home sales, and existing home sales, to name a few.

Josh Romney, representing the non-profit Great Salt Lake Rising, shared information related to the depleted water level of the Great Salt Lake and its impact on the Wasatch Front.

If you’re interested in receiving any of the three slide decks, please:

While interest rates have been unchanged for last five Fed meetings, it appears a rate increase may be coming from the September 15-16 meeting. At last check, inflation was estimated at 3.40%, well above the Fed’s target of 2.00%.

“You may have read in the July minutes the unanimous view of the FOMC: Labor markets were stable, and output was solid. But inflation remained too high. A good majority of my colleagues and I thought the wiser course was to await new information in the intermeeting period—especially given possible developments in supply chains, investment flows, and geopolitics—before deciding whether a change in interest rate policy was advisable. And we expressed our joint readiness to act as circumstances might require.

“There is one signal nobody can miss: The responsibility for 65 months of sustained, elevated inflation sits squarely with the central bank. And that is where it belongs.

“Here is my standard: We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do. That’s our job . . . our mandate . . . and our charge to keep.”

August 28, 2026
Kevin Warsh/Federal Reserve Chairman
Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium
Keynote Address
Jackson Hole, WY

“I have worked with Concept Property Management and the owner, Scott Cruze, for 20+ years. Both he and his team manage a 60-unit property for me. They handle all management including capital improvements, leasing, maintenance, etc. Our working relationship has been very good over the years.”

Gerald Barstow, Owner