Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
- Cedar City builder offers affordable luxury homes in Temple View Commons project.
- Director Jarrod Grannum emphasizes cost-saving strategies like small staff and no realtors.
- Utah faces housing challenges; Gov. Cox called for 35,000 starter homes by 2028.
CEDAR CITY — With home prices steadily rising in Utah and with demand only expected to climb in the years to come, a homebuilder shared its approach to keep a new housing project priced below the median in Iron County.
Director of operations Jarrod Grannum said the owner and developer of the 160-unit Temple View Commons, 3049 W. 1600 North, intentionally maintains a small staff and doesn't use realtors to help offset costs in the current marketplace.
"I wear multiple hats, our general contractor, our owner's wife — she's our designer," Grannum explained during a recent interview with KSL. "We all are just willing to get dirty, get in the mud and take on whatever task is assigned to us."
Grannum said the goal is to make home ownership affordable and attainable to most homebuyers while keeping quality high.
"These are luxury twin homes, upgraded features, large backyards," Grannum said. "Right now, the average median price over last month in Iron County was $430,000. That's my two-story option. We're just below that. My one-story option is essentially $40,000 less than that."
Finding housing that fits the budget has been increasingly challenging in Utah, with reports placing Utah among the 10 most expensive housing markets in the nation.
Meanwhile, economists say a housing shortage in the tens of thousands of units continues to put upward pressure on prices.
Gov. Spencer Cox has called for 35,000 new starter homes to be built by 2028 amid economic conditions that remain challenging, according to his advisers.
While the governor admitted during a summit at the University of Utah this fall that the state had a "long ways to go," he remained optimistic about the situation and the potential for interest rates to continue to go down.
In that climate, Grannum said the developers of Temple View Commons' pitch to prospective buyers is that not only are the twin homes affordable, but they offer amenities of far more expensive properties.
"They've built a few luxury homes down in St. George," Grannum said. "When this all came about, it was 'why don't we take some of these features and styles, per se, that we do in these luxury homes and put it into more affordable housing so that everybody can enjoy what the 'few' has always enjoyed."
