Thirty-year mortgage rates jumped to 6.71% the week of Friday, Sept. 4, their highest level in more than a year.

In the Lehi area, where the median home in the Provo-Orem-Lehi metro costs $572,450, the squeeze on buyers is getting worse. Statewide, 74% of Utahns are priced out of a median-priced home, according to the Utah Housing Strategic Plan Metrics as reported by the Lehi Free Press in July.

But Jeremy Holmgren, senior vice president of Zions Bank Mortgage, told the Deseret News that buyers who stay engaged could benefit from less competition and potentially more leverage with sellers as Utah's inventory grows.

"This is a time to be strategic, not a time to panic or leave the market," Holmgren said.

Sellers are already cutting prices

Local agents say the numbers back that up. Salt Lake Board of Realtors President Scott Colemere said in August that homes were spending 45 to 47 days on the market. In all of 2026, he said, he had only one transaction where a buyer paid full price. Everything else was discounted.

Utah Association of Realtors President-elect Aaron Drussel told the Deseret News on Aug. 11 that sellers who tried to command a premium in the spring were adjusting expectations. He cited a client who made a competitive offer on a Lehi home priced about $25,000 above recent comparable sales and still lost out, though the home ultimately sold below its roughly $600,000 asking price.

Utah County's median home price reached about $548,000 in May, up 7% from a year earlier, according to market data cited in a Daily Herald guest opinion published Tuesday, Sept. 1. More than 61% of Utah mortgage holders carry an interest rate below 4%, according to a University of Utah Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute outlook reported by the Lehi Free Press. That lock-in effect keeps many existing homeowners from listing.

Why rates are climbing

A global sell-off of government bonds is pushing mortgage costs higher, the Deseret News reported, citing The Wall Street Journal. The 10-year U.S. Treasury yield hit a three-year high amid concerns over the ongoing U.S.-Israel war against Iran, the national debt reaching $40 trillion and a possible Federal Reserve rate hike.

Holmgren told the Deseret News that a potential 7% rate "is more psychologically worse than it is economical," noting the mathematical gap from 6.75% is small.

What comes next

Mortgage Bankers Association President and CEO Bob Broeksmit said in a Thursday, Sept. 3, statement that rates are expected to stay near 6.7% for the foreseeable future, according to National Mortgage News.

The Federal Reserve's next policy meeting is scheduled for Sept. 15–16. A rate hike there would be the first in more than three years and could push mortgage costs higher still.