For those hoping that the crazy housing market is just a bubble about to pop, the news is bad. Home prices in February have shot up in Salt Lake County by a whopping 23% over last year, with Utah County coming in at a record high of 30% in 12 months, Davis County up 25%, Weber County up 26% and Tooele County beating out all other areas by coming in at an increase of 43%.

The researchers at the University's Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute estimate that 67% of Utahns can't afford a median-priced single family home. The U.S. Census Bureau reported our statewide population at 3.36 million people in 2022. Sixty-seven percent would mean that 2.25 million of our neighbors can't afford to live in this state.

But where can you afford a home? Zillow estimates that homes in Boise, Idaho, cost an average $534,806 and in Phoenix, Arizona, it's $404,000. Realtor.com reports the average home price in Reno, Nevado, is $555,000 and $406,000 in Las Vegas.

You probably know that gas prices are insane right now and food prices just keep going up. Just before the pandemic in 2019, the annual inflation rate in the U.S. was 2.3%. From February 2021 to February 2022, that rate jumped to 7.9%—the highest since 1982. Meat, poultry, fish and egg prices are up 13% in the past 12 months; fruits and veggies are up 7.6%, gas prices are up 8%. All this bad news adds up to everyone having a lot less take-home pay at the end of the month.

If you had purchased a home in 2021, your mortgage rate would have been in the high 3% to low 4% rate. Now it's jumping to around 5%. The payment on a mortgage of $500,000 has gone up almost $400 in just a year—principal, interest, taxes and insurance—from around $2,700 a month at 3.5% interest to almost $3,100 at 5%. That drastic increase pushes out many first-time buyers who can't qualify for the higher payment.

We are currently down tens of thousands of units to meet the demand of not just home buyers, but also renters. This bubble won't burst soon given that as of March 17, we had only 515 properties for sale in Salt Lake County (all prices), with 10,500 members of the Salt Lake Board of Realtors trying to put offers on these properties for their clients. In a normal market, we'd have between 2,000 and 3000 homes for sale.

More people are moving to Utah than out of Utah and that alone puts immense pressure on housing inventory. Stacker.com reported this month that Utah has massive amounts of people moving here from California, Colorado, Idaho, Arizona and Texas, in that order. Although we're in a building boom, we definitely are not keeping up with demand, nor does it look better in the next few years for anyone hoping to find a deal on their first home.