'Severely unaffordable': Housing prices, cost of living plague Utah quality of life survey

SALT LAKE CITY — Measuring a place's quality of life is tricky and certainly dependent on who you ask and what you ask about.

That is the case for the Beehive State, which, this year, earned the title of the best state to live in in U.S. News & World Report's annual best states index, while a different CNBC list named it one of the 10 worst states in which to live.

The broad range of opinions makes sense for a state that consistently scores high in terms of community, economic well-being and entrepreneur friendliness while falling to the middle of the pack or toward the bottom of the list when it comes to cost of living, housing affordability and air quality and pollution issues.

To get a real sense of how Utahns feel, the Utah Foundation administered its statewide Quality of Life Index survey for the sixth time since 2011.

"This project is very different because we are asking people ... 'How do you feel about your quality of life'" said Shawn Teigen, president of the Utah Foundation.

The results?

Not so great, it turns out, as a survey-informed report released Monday said Utah's quality of life is at its lowest point since the survey was first administered 15 years ago.

More specifically, the survey asked respondents to rate their community's quality of life across 20 factors.

Those ratings inform the Utah Community Quality of Life Index, which measured 63 out of 100 in 2026 — a 10-point decline since the last survey was issued in 2013.

Unsurprisingly, the main drivers of this decline are housing affordability and the cost of living.

"People do not feel good about the affordability of housing in their communities," Teigen said. "Even if you own your own home, you don't feel good about it because often, you bring up things like 'What about kids? What about younger people? What about people that are renting right now that want to someday own a home?'"

The median sales price of a single-family home in Utah ranks among the 10 most expensive in the U.S. at $559,000, according to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, with the state's home prices considered "severely unaffordable."

"Ongoing housing affordability problems threaten Utahns' quality of life and, if not addressed, may worsen as the population grows," the report said.

But economic strains aren't limited to potential homebuyers.

The U.S. Consumer Price Index rose 3.4% in August over last year, and the 2026 cost of living index for Salt Lake City was 101.4%, meaning goods cost, on average, 1.4% more in the Salt Lake City area than the national average.

Additionally, the state's consumer sentiment dropped 4.6% in September, marking Utahns' lowest sentiment level since May and erasing three consecutive months of sentiment gains.

While those two factors represented the biggest drops, they certainly weren't the only drops. In fact, from 2013 to 2026, the report shows that all community quality-of-life factors (excluding parks and recreation and community safety) declined "significantly."

With all this in mind, the report said survey findings should be used to identify issues where a "policy focus or targeted intervention" could help improve Utahns' outcomes.

Specifically, it notes the following actions as having the greatest potential to improve quality of life for Utahns:

• Building on how much people support and help each other.
• Promoting the production of quality, affordable housing.
• Exploring ways to reduce the cost of living.
• Working to improve opportunities for good jobs.
• Improving policies and programs to enhance environmental quality, such as air and water quality.
• Investing in transportation and public transit infrastructure and programs to reduce traffic and improve roads and highways.

The full report is available here.

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