A home for sale in Salt Lake City is pictured on Monday, July 22, 2024. (Photo by Spenser Heaps for Utah News Dispatch)
A bill meant to give everyday Utahns a slight edge over corporate buyers didn’t survive its first legislative hurdle after lawmakers expressed concerns about restricting the housing market and potentially causing home sellers to face fair housing lawsuits.
The House Political Subdivisions Committee on Tuesday voted 5-2 to hold HB151, a bill sponsored by Rep. Gay Lynn Bennion, D-Cottonwood Heights. It’s not likely to gain traction in the 2025 Utah Legislature, with the session scheduled to end March 7.
With HB151, Bennion wants to give Utahns a bit of an edge over corporate buyers of single-family homes in Utah’s most populated county.
To encourage Utahns to have first dibs on a home after it hits the market, HB151 would restrict a buyer from purchasing a home in Salt Lake County for 30 days after it’s listed unless the buyer signs an affidavit of intent to live in the home for at least one year.
To avoid taking too much of a heavy-handed approach, Bennion included a provision in the bill to allow sellers to sell to anyone in the first 30 days if they claim a need to sell the home faster, or if a renter would live in the single-family home on the day the buyer takes possession of it.
“This bill provides a cooling-off period for investors in (Salt Lake County) for the purchase of single-family homes, but also respects the seller and allows for the use of an exigent circumstance to accept any offer,” Bennion said.
Her bill would also prohibit the bulk sale of foreclosed single-family homes to one buyer or more.
“The goal of this bill is to raise the moral question of home ownership to the transaction of the sale and purchase of single-family homes in (Salt Lake County),” Bennion said.
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She pointed to recent Salt Lake County data compiled by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy that showed 10,666 homes changed hands from non-corporate owners to corporate owners between 2018 and 2023. Utah News Dispatch reported on that data in August.
Across the nation, institutional investors impact some cities more than others — and they’re not as nearly prevalent in Utah as they are in major metros like Miami, Houston and Atlanta. But Bennion argued it’s still happening to a concerning extent in Salt Lake County, and that Utah lawmakers should act to find ways to help Utahns have a better chance of competing with corporate buyers that can often offer cash.
“For three years, people have shared their concerns with me that investors are cutting into home ownership in negative ways,” Bennion said. “Some investors use algorithms, some use cash, but they all push out the individual who is coming into home ownership for the first time and doesn’t have those tools and experience.”
Lisa Thompson, a real estate agent, sat alongside Bennion as she presented her bill. She said it would give people intending to live in the home a “first shot” in the market, “because it’s hard to compete” with investors that don’t have to jump through the same financing hoops as other buyers. However, she also said investors aren’t as active in Utah as they were in 2020, when the West experienced a home buying frenzy amid the COVID-19 pandemic and low interest rates.
But several real estate professionals and business owners spoke against Bennion’s bill, arguing it wouldn’t have a practical impact on bringing down the price of homes in Utah — but rather it would cause homes to sit on the market longer.
Chris Sloan, a past president of the Utah Association of Realtors and a broker and owner of a real estate agency in Tooele, said that he supports Bennion’s efforts to encourage home ownership but argued her bill would “cause some real concerns.”
“This bill essentially requires the owners to give up first right of refusal to owner-occupied purchasers for 30 days,” Sloan said. “First right of refusals, contractual right between buyers and sellers, is something that generally costs the seller money. Delaying a transaction for any period is expensive.”
Taz Biesinger, with the Utah Home Builders Association, also argued “this bill will not help the affordability crisis that we have in Utah.” He said investors are “not a big player in the marketplace, Utah is unique that way.”
“This is just not part of the equation of housing affordability,” Biesinger said.
Chris Gamvroulas, president of Ivory Development and president of the Utah Property Rights Coalition, also spoke against Bennion’s bill.
“The solution to an under-supply is not to interfere in the exchange of real property between a willing buyer and a willing seller,” Gamvroulas said.
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But Clark Bolin, a Murray resident, urged lawmakers to support the bill, arguing that “merely building more homes has not worked. That’s something that we keep trying, and it’s not happening.”
“I don’t think this is a perfect bill. And I don’t think it actually goes far enough, honestly,” Bolin said, urging lawmakers to consider taxing corporate buyers at a higher rate than private owners. However, he said Bennion’s bill “starts the ball rolling on a really important conversation of home ownership and really allowing the private investor to have a leg up and a head start over corporate ownership.”
Jennifer Cottam, a real estate agent in Cottonwood Heights — a city known for its desirable real estate near the base of the Cottonwood canyons — spoke in “strong support” of Bennion’s bill, saying she’s seen first-hand the impact from corporate buyers.
“I work with families who are doing everything right. They’re saving. They’re planning. They’re working hard,” She said. “(But) especially when the market’s tough and (for) lower-price point homes, they’re outbid by cash offers from investors.”
However, Rep. Neil Walter, R-St. George, motioned to hold the bill rather than allowing it to advance to the House floor. While he said he’s supportive of the “principle of home ownership,” Bennion’s bill “is just the wrong tool to accomplish that policy objective.”
“I’m concerned that we’re trying to use sellers as a public policy tool to make concessions … we’re trying to force sellers to make concessions as part of our public policy objective,” Walter said. “They don’t have an obligation or shouldn’t bear that cost.”
Walter also expressed concerns about requiring sellers to pay attention to who they’re selling to, which he said could “create an avenue where we’re going to end up with a whole bunch of fair housing violations.”
The majority of the Republican-controlled House committee agreed with Walter, with only Bennion and Rep. Jake Fitisemanu, D-West Valley City, voting against his motion to hold the bill.
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