Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Rep. Tyler Clancy abandons a bill to ban companies from buying Utah homes.
- Clancy acknowledges opposition but plans to continue addressing the housing issue.
- Experts argue the bill wouldn't lower housing costs, with Utah's median home price at $500,000.
SALT LAKE CITY — A state lawmaker is abandoning a bill that would have prohibited companies from buying single-family homes in Utah.
While Rep. Tyler Clancy, R-Provo, said he's not pushing this idea further this session, he's not giving up on the overall issue.
"I had no misunderstandings that this would be a very difficult task," Clancy told KSL-TV.
Clancy's HB149 sought to prevent corporations from purchasing single-family homes in the state even though experts say those investors account for less than 3% of the state's single-family rental stock.
"There's a lot of grassroots support for this," said Clancy, who rents and would like to buy a house himself someday.
But the lawmaker acknowledged he ran into opposition from various groups.
"We started out like two freight trains coming at each other," Clancy said.
Now his bill will not move forward this session. A similar proposal, HB151, sponsored by Rep. Gay Lynn Bennion, D-Cottonwood Heights, also failed to advance this week. It would have put new rules around home sales in Salt Lake County to discourage investors from buying them.
"Both bills are very well-intentioned," said Ross Ford, executive director of the Utah Home Builders Association.
But, he added, they both posed problems.
"To have someone come in and say, 'we're going to control how a sale goes, we're going to try and control the private market with government forces,' generally doesn't work well," Ford said.
Ford also maintained neither bill would have reduced the cost of housing. The statewide median price for a home in Utah is around $500,000.
Going forward, Clancy said he plans to work with opponents to his bill this year to try to figure this out.
"We need to be more precise maybe in our approach," he said, "and they felt that my approach was a little too aggressive for their liking."
While home prices remain high, the market is not as competitive as it has been in the past. According to the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, houses in Utah are sitting on the market around 54 days before selling.
