At the end of a cul-de-sac in Sandy is a row of red brick townhouses. They have sweeping green lawns out front and kids' bikes lying at the bottom of a few of the stoops.
One of the doors with a wreath and a welcome mat that reads ‘Happy you’re here’ belongs to 28-year-old Jaxon Smith, who bought his house in late 2023.
“It was always a goal, but it wasn't something that I was like, ‘Oh, this will happen in the next two years or whatever,’” he said.
It was pretty straightforward for him, actually. He found something in his price range, took out a loan and put down just over 6%, which is pretty low in the scheme of things. He was single then and working full-time. Even so, he found the mortgage payments and HOA fees too expensive to cover on his own, so he got some roommates.
“If I didn't want roommates, I wouldn't have bought it,” he said. “It just would have been too tight financially.”
Just 27% of Utah households are non-family households, according to 2024 census data. Those same census figures estimate that half of those households are owner-occupied, rather than just purely renters.
Smith said he was lucky that the people he rented the rooms out to were already his friends and “great at communication.”
“I was like, great, you're employed. I know you. I trust you. So come live with me,” he said with a laugh.
“I honestly am not sure how I would have handled someone maybe not being able to pay rent in a friendship dynamic versus, you know, a stranger or whatever.”
Before buying his house, he considered building out a van and traveling around the U.S., and even moved back in with his parents to do so. He was always good with money and found that living rent-free for a time built his savings to where, suddenly, the lofty dream of being a homeowner was possible.
He began casually looking online at properties when a realtor reached out and helped him go from dipping a toe to diving into the house hunt headfirst. After about two months, he found the little brick townhouse in Sandy.
Smith kept the pen he used to sign the final paperwork. It sits on his desk in his upstairs office. It's a simple, cheap, plastic blue Bic. But to him, it symbolizes one of the biggest decisions of his life.
“I've said, you know, ‘They're getting quite a bit of money from me buying this house. They maybe could invest in slightly nicer pens,’” he laughed before putting it back.
When it comes to living with others, Smith said it’s not necessarily what you have in common as friends, but what differences you may have as roommates. Variations in schedules, eating habits and cleanliness standards all rise to the surface.
What helped him navigate it all was making sure to take a step back now and then for perspective.
“There were a lot of things where I was like, ‘Yeah, it's maybe not my preference, but it's really not that big of a deal,’” he said.
He still had some contractual obligations for security, mostly to do with pets. One roommate had a cat, and the other had a dog.
“I didn't take a security deposit, but it was expected that if the animals did do damage, it was their responsibility to pay for those fixes,” he said.
After almost three years of helping him cover expenses, Smith’s roommates moved out in June. His girlfriend moved in and now helps with the mortgage. Their house is homey. The artwork on the walls is vibrant and unique, with landscapes and retro cowboy pictures that look like traditional American tattoo art. He credits much of the interior design to his girlfriend.
But he does have one favorite piece that symbolizes his homeownership. Above the table in the kitchen is a painting of a rock gateway and what looks like the entrance to a country driveway in the woods. It's a splash of greens and blues.
“My parents, when they moved into the house that I was born in, were gifted this, and then when I bought my house, they gifted it to me,” he said. “So it's kind of special, you know.”
Smith doesn't just live with his girlfriend, though. She brought two new, albeit four-legged, roommates with her.
“This is Suki,” he said as he picked up a black cat with a white goatee. “She's occasionally sweet and often a terror.”
Turning to a fridge covered with magnets holding up wedding invitations and Polaroids of him and his friends, he grabbed a beer out of the door, cracked it open and began doing some dishes.
His girlfriend will be home in a couple of hours.
Editor’s Note: This summer, KUER is asking Utahns how they got the house. If you’re in the military, there’s a big perk to your service — getting a VA loan can feel like a cheat code in the housing market.
