September 2026 | Urban Utah Homes and Estates

I apologize in advance. This isn’t great news. Foreclosure filings this Spring 2026 totaled 42,430 properties in the U.S., including default notices, auctions, and bank repossessions, representing an 18% year-over-year increase but an 8% decline from March 2026 according to realtor.com. Nationwide, 1 in every 3,388 housing units had a foreclosure filing and foreclosure starts increased 12% annually, and completed foreclosures (REOs) rose 42% year-over-year.

We had massive foreclosures during the 2008-era Recession in our country. Sadly, I had clients call days before the bank repossessed the property and that was too late to offer help. If you’ve never been through this process, it can be very stressful. Foreclosure is the legal process where the lender takes a property back because the borrower failed to make payments. When you buy a home, the property serves as collateral for the home loan. Miss a payment and the homeowner goes into default with the bank, just like if you missed a car payment with your lender.

Once you go into default the lender sends out a notice. You have a chance to make the payment up if you can, with penalties and interest, but after 90 days the lender will file a Notice of Default wherein you get 30 days to pay what’s in arrears to reinstate your loan. If you don’t pay what’s in arrears, the lender will sell the property through the legal process of foreclosure. During that Recession I saw banks either being aggressive to foreclose or taking months, even years to do so depending on the lender.

The process isn’t fun for a homeowner and for me to help someone I must have time to work with their lender, not just a few days. Generally, your credit will be trashed for a while if you have a foreclosure on your credit, but a short sale can be less damaging. A short is where you sell your home or property for less than what you owe on your mortgage, with the lender’s approval.

States right now with heavy foreclosure rates include Delaware (due to rising housing costs and a recent hike in property taxes); South Carolina where there are affordability issues in some areas; and Florida where insurance and condo fees have skyrocketed and people are just walking away from their units.

What’s driving foreclosure rates? Higher mortgage rates, rising insurance and HOA rates/fees, and property tax jumps, and job loss. Plus, people are finding it hard to find good paying jobs, making hundreds of applications before landing decent pay. Foreclosure rates have been rising but I’m not seeing an overall crisis yet. I watch rates in Utah and yes, foreclosure numbers are growing. IF you are facing losing your property and don’t see a way out, do call me or your REALTOR who can help stop the stress and help with a short sale. Do NOT wait until the last minute!

It’s about time we looked at the ever-changing demographics of our state to see where we stand these days. According to usafacts.org our state grew in population by 35,900 between 2024-2025 with the annual 1% increase primarily driven by births outpacing deaths. In the ten years prior to that, we grew by 17.9%.

We know Utahns like to breed and although our population grew due to births, it’s interesting that birth rates have gone down in the past decade. According to the EPHT Health Indicator Report Utah had 44,992 live births in 2023 which is a rate of 13.0 per 1000 residents, down about 26% in the past decade. Yet, the U.S. birth rate for 2023 was 10.7 per 1,000, making Utah stats way above the national average. And according to utahbusiness.com our total fertility rate fell to 1.801 in 2003. We were the 4^th most fertile state in the country, but as of 2023 data, we’ve dropped to the 10^th highest. There has been a 15-year trend in Utah’s fertility rate, with the sharpest drops among the 25-29 and 30-34 age groups. There was an interesting minor blip in the birth rate during ’23-’24 due to delayed pregnancies from the COVID Pandemic.

Utah County has had the largest population increase in Utah as of data from 2025, with Summit County losing 109 residents. But, between 2024 and 2025, Tooele County gained 3.1% in population, Washington County up 2.5% and Iron, Box Elder and Morgan County were almost in a tie for third place growth per the U.S. Census Bureau. Our neighbors in Idaho saw a 22% increase in population between 2015-2025, Nevada increased by 14.9% and Arizona by 13.7%.

In my world of real estate sales, I’m running into almost an equal mix of people moving in and out of Utah. Given that NO city in the world has ever recovered from a Salt Lake running dry, some are leaving because they are afraid of the potential toxic dust containing arsenic and heavy metals when the winds blow over the lake, and with out our lake we really won’t have much snow in our mountains as the lake level and our ski resorts are connected. Lower the lake, less snow. Yet, I keep working with folks moving here to attend or teach at the U of U Med school. Some are surprised at our cost of living, but that depends on where they come from. Clients moving here from San Francisco are happy as hell with rental and home prices given that it’s impossible to find a one bedroom apartment for rent in San Francisco for less than $4000 as compared to an average of $1,300-$1,427 per month in Salt Lake City (per apartments.com). The techies have discovered our State and many companies have relocate here or are planning expansion offices here. Our Job market is strong, and according to the Department of Workforce Services, our unemployment rate in May of this year was 3.7%, meaning 96.3% of our employable citizens have jobs. The U.S. rate for the same month was 4.3%.

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