St. George • As Tim Colburn’s six-year quest to land an affordable home in housing-strapped Washington County continues, he can’t help but pine for the one he nearly had but let slip away.
In 2020, he and his wife, Lexie, found a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home on 5 acres in Veyo, about 20 miles northwest of St. George, for $330,000. But newly married at the time and facing the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic, he said he was too wary about the economy to pull the trigger on the deal.
Colburn, who works in industrial equipment sales, said that same home came back on the market two years ago and sold for $760,000. Further exacerbating his angst, the couple and their two children are mired in a cramped 1980s downtown St. George apartment and their prospects for owning a home look bleak.
“You get into a stuck mentality, always waiting for a better opportunity that passes you by or for a better one to come along,” Colburn said. “It feels like owning a home is something you can never accomplish.”
Families across Washington County say they’re facing similar struggles, including Gavin and Rakell Johnson in Hurricane, who have spent four years trying to raise their credit scores and save for a home of their own.
Utah is in the midst of a housing shortage fueled by high interest rates, inflation and years of underbuilding — a gap that could grow by more than 200,000 homes over the next 30 years without significant policy changes, according to a recent report.
The ‘big ask’
(Jud Burkett | Special to The Tribune) A variety of homes and condominiums in various states of construction in the Desert Color neighborhood near the Arizona-Utah state line in St. George, Thursday, March 20, 2025.
Washington County is projected to grow by 30% over the next decade, increasing its population from approximately 202,000 to 268,800. This growth will necessitate an additional 29,000 homes, according to a 2025 study conducted for The Washington County Board of Realtors.
“That’s how quickly the county is growing,” said Washington County Board of Realtors CEO Emily Merkley. “Building another 29,000 housing units in that amount of time is a big ask.”
Further north, projections from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute show that Iron County’s population is expected to surge from approximately 65,000 to over 80,000 within the next 10 years. To meet the demand generated by this influx, an estimated 8,500 new homes will need to be built.
Not only is there a housing shortage, the homes on the market are often too pricey, especially for first-time buyers. In an attempt to ease the housing and affordability crisis, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox launched an initiative in 2024 to build 35,000 new starter homes by 2028 that would sell for less than $400,000. But even those “starter” prices remain out of reach for many Washington County residents.
Steve Waldrip, the governor’s senior adviser for housing strategy and innovation, said 5,000 of those homes were added to the state’s housing stock last year. But construction has slowed, he said, with roughly 1,500 homes built this year. He attributes the drop to high market interest rates, which have spooked builders, buyers and sellers.
“When interest rates go from 2 or 3% to 6 or 7%, it’s generally a penalty for people to upsize or downsize,” he said. “So people are staying in their homes a lot longer, and the market is not behaving like it normally does.”
Still, do $400,000 homes really qualify as affordable housing? Not really, according to the Board of Realtor study, which determined the average buyer needs to make $149,000 a year to afford the median $520,000 price for a Washington County home. Washington County’s median household income, the study found, is $77,000, which is 17% lower than the state average of $93,400.
“From a housing affordability perspective, something is considered affordable if it is no more than three times the median household area income,” Merkley said. “So if you take that $77,000 and times it by three, a home would be considered affordable if it was in the $231,000 price range, and there is virtually none of that here.”
In 2000, the study noted, Washington County homes were approximately three times higher than the median household income. By the end of 2023, they were nearly seven times higher than the median household income. Merkley said the truth is that the county’s housing market has not been in the affordable range since the 1980s, and has only gotten worse over the years.
In Iron County, according to James Wood, Senior Fellow at the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, the median household income is roughly $71,000, which fixes the affordable home’s price tag at $213,000. Jenny Vossler, president of the Iron County Board of Realtors said the median sales price for homes in the area is $405,000, though she said most people she talks to consider affordable homes to be priced between $300,000 and $350,000.
Waldrip said the affordability crunch comes down to supply and demand. He said the nation under-built homes for years following the Great Recession because a lot of contractors and financial institutions went out of business.
“So we spent a lot of years not building enough supply to keep up with the demand,” Waldrip said. “Until we restore that balance, we won’t see prices stabilize.”
Chasing the American Dream
(Chris Caldwell | Special to The Tribune) Gavin Johnson with his children at their rented townhome in Hurricane, Tuesday, Dec. 30, 2025. Johnson, like many others have found difficulty making the jump from renting to buying a house for his family in the local housing market.
For Gavin and Rakell Johnson, the affordability math plays out in daily frustration.
“I work 60-plus hours a week to provide for my family,” Gavin Johnson said. “But as hard and as long as I work, I can’t seem to outrun the cost of housing and living.”
Nate Caplin, who teaches economics at Utah Tech University, said costs weigh heavily on his students, many of whom are delaying starting a family due to the unaffordable housing market.
“I’ve had young people on campus tell me they intend to marry, but they have to live in separate dorms because they can’t afford a one or two-bedroom house together,” he said.
Still, Waldrip added, help is on the way. The governor’s office is working with the Utah Department of Transportation to devise a process to sell off surplus property to developers for affordable housing, including some parcels in Washington County.
In addition, at Cox’s direction, the Utah Trust Lands Administration (TLA) is now factoring affordable housing into the properties it sells rather than just awarding them to the highest bidder. The TLA is currently working with a developer to potentially put 254 small starter homes, priced between $350,000 and $400,000, on 40 acres of unincorporated land situated next to pricey real estate near Ivins.
Gregg McArthur, TLA’s economic development and project manager, said the state is also working with the developer Cole West to place single-family detached homes on roughly 100 Washington City acres near the landfill. The 1,200-square-foot homes will be priced at roughly $400,000.
To encourage Cole West to construct affordable housing, Washington City granted the developer a density bonus, allowing them to build 220 homes instead of the originally planned 135, according to McArthur. Additional incentives were provided: the TLA agreed to reduce its share from the sale of each home from 11% to 6%, and Cole West committed to cutting its own profits by two-thirds.
“So everybody took a cut on what they typically make, and the city worked with us to make it a viable project,” McArthur said.
Another affordable housing project is on the drawing boards on La Verkin’s east bench, where the TLA is working with D.R. Horton to pave the way for placing 1,030 homes on 315 acres that would be priced from $360,000 to the low $500,000s.
Some developers are also pitching in to help. In northwest Cedar City, Temple View Commons is taking shape near the airport. Thus far, eight units in what the developer is billing as an “affordable luxury twin-home subdivision” are finished, with another 156 planned over the next several years.
Jarrod Grannum, Director of Operations for Temple View Commons, said the developers, Rob and Weston Marcum, have extensive experience building luxury homes and wanted to bring that quality to affordable housing, even if it cut into their profit.
To that end, he said, the twin homes have shingle roofs, fireplaces, large windows, upscale kitchen and bathroom fixtures, walk-in glass showers and backyard enclosed by block fencing, among other amenities. The homes range from $389,000 for a one-story home to $425,000 for the two-story model.
“We want these homes to be turnkey,” Grannum said, “where people can come in and feel right at home.”
Exports and imports
(Jud Burkett | Special to The Tribune) A sign promoting a model home stands in the Desert Color neighborhood near the Arizona-Utah state line in St. George, Utah Thursday, March 20, 2025.
Among the solutions Merkley and other housing experts floated to fix the affordability crisis are loosening restrictive zoning to allow for smaller homes on smaller lots, relaxing design standards, expanding the supply among all types of housing, including townhomes and multifamily, and cities expediting the approval processes for developments.
While many are concerned higher-density housing will result in Utah cities and towns losing their culture and identity, Waldrip said the fastest way to do that is to export all of our kids and to import their replacements. “We need to create starter homes if we want our kids and grandkids to stay here and not leave because they are chasing affordable housing somewhere else,” he said.
For their part, Corbin and Kalee Walker are grateful to have finally found a home with a yard for less than $400,000 in Enoch, even if it’s in Iron County and requires him to make a 60-mile daily commute to and from his job in St. George.
Corbin, who is 33, said it beats the alternative. “I can’t tell you how many people my age are living with their parents because they have very few options. It’s really hard to be able to afford anything here.”