by Terry Morrison 
Want to make your home in a city that attracts attention for all the right reasons? Then look no further than Sandy, UT. In 2023, this Salt Lake City suburb made Livability’s list of the Top 25 Best Places to Live Out West, then scored again to claim a spot among its Top 100 Best Places to Live in the U.S.
At the foot of the Wasatch Mountains, just 19 miles south of Salt Lake City, Sandy offers an amazing blend of outdoor adventures, big-league sports, cultural venues, and amusements to entertain the whole family.
Mormon pioneers settled what is now Sandy in the 1860s, and it became a mining boom town in the 1870s. Incorporated in 1893 with just over 1,000 residents, it has about 93,000 today. While no one is sure how the city got its name, it could be a tribute to Alexander “Sandy” Kinghorn, the red-haired Scottish railroad engineer who ran the first train line to the area — or simply Brigham Young’s remark about the quality of the soil.
A Strong Economy
Sandy is now a modern boom town where the median household income is $108,165 and the median value of owner-occupied homes is $492,300, according to U.S. Census data. Leading industries, as reported by Data USA, include healthcare and social assistance; retail trade; and professional, scientific, and technical services. Mining, quarrying, and oil and gas extraction form the highest-paying industry group, with agriculture, forestry, fishing, hunting, and corporate management also providing generous paychecks. The unemployment rate is an enviable 2.4% compared to the U.S. rate of 3.8%.
If you’d like to work for a large, well-established company, Sandy offers lots of options. Here’s the job site Lensa’s list of the city’s top 10 employers by revenue:
- Wells Fargo
- AT&T
- Walmart
- Verizon
- Target
- UnitedHealth Group
- State Farm
- Comcast
- Oracle
- The Home Depot
The Cairns, a vibrant urban core
Sandy’s thriving economy is getting a big boost from The Cairns, the 1,100-acre city center launched in 2105 to reimagine the downtown area that developers predict will make Sandy the world’s first mountain city. A hub for living, working, playing, and shopping, The Cairns District has already created 6,000 jobs.
The Cairns’ achievements so far include:
- Hale Centre Theatre, hosting Broadway shows, among many others, with a 450-seat proscenium thrust stage and a world-class, 850-seat theater-in-the-round stage
- The Park at City Center, a 330-unit resort-style class apartment community
- A mid-rise apartment community plus other housing options close to mass transit and downtown amenities
When complete, the district, encompassing 20 million square feet, will boast:
- New trails
- Enhanced transportation and plenty of walkable event parking
- A bustling arts and entertainment scene
- A “mountain meets urban” shopping plaza
- Varied housing options, hotels, offices, and retail spaces
As if all this weren’t enough, The Cairns will also serve as an international base camp for recreation in the nearby Wasatch canyons, which include Big Cottonwood Canyon and Little Cottonwood Canyon.
Endless options for recreation amid striking scenery
Take a scenic drive to Little Cottonwood Canyon, where wilderness surrounds you as you enjoy rock climbing, camping, picnicking, and hiking in the summer. The canyon also hosts two ski resorts, world-class Snowbird and Alta, which had a colorful history of shootings in saloons during the 19th-century mining days. Visit Snowbird to ride Utah’s only aerial tramway to the Rockies for a panoramic view from 11,000-foot Hidden Peak.
Big Cottonwood Canyon, an ancient ravine created by glacier and stream erosion, boasts two world-class ski resorts, Solitude and Brighton. It also features challenging rock-climbing routes, backcountry skiing access, hiking and mountain biking trails, and picnic areas where the natural beauty is likely to distract you from even the tastiest lunch.
If you’re not feeling adventurous enough to tackle the canyons, not to worry. In Sandy, more than 60 hiking and biking trails beckon you to stretch your legs and feast your eyes.
For an array of active recreation choices in one location, you can’t beat Alta Canyon Sports Center. You can find racquetball, tennis, and pickleball courts, and an outdoor swimming pool. There’s also a fitness center offering a weight room, cardio room, aerobics classes, and personal training. Kids’ programs include activities before and after school, a Play & Learn Preschool, a summer camp, and a STEAM enrichment programs called Snapology Robotics Favorites. A dojo offers karate classes at the center for students of all ages and skill levels. Daily passes as well as annual, monthly, and summer memberships are available.
An ideal place to raise a family
It’s easy to find excellent public schools for your little scholars here. Thirty-one percent of them rank in the top 10% statewide, according to Public School Review, which placed Sandy at No. 2 on its list of best cities for public schools in Utah. Your children should have lots of role models for advancing their education, too, since U.S. Census statistics show that 95.4% of Sandy’s adults who are 25 or older graduated from high school and 44.5% have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
When the homework is done, there are tons of places where the kids can enjoy themselves. Sandy has more than two dozen parks, including one reserved for skateboarding and freestyle BMX. The Classic Fun Center offers bouncing, laser tag, skating, an arcade with more than 50 video games, a Blast Zone where kids can let off steam by shooting foam balls, and The Jungle, with giant slides, zip lines, rope swings, and two stories of places to climb. Luv2Play is an indoor playground for children up to 12 that offers dedicated areas for babies and toddlers.
Many of the Broadway shows and other plays at the Hale Centre Theatre, which hosts performances all year long, are fine for all ages. The playhouse also offers free student matinees that include productions based on classic novels and historical events. During the summer at the Sandy Amphitheater, the whole family can enjoy concerts and arts events including touring acts, local performers, and Sandy Arts Guild productions.
Every August, the two-day Sandy City Balloon Festival at Storm Mountain Park is sure to captivate kids and adults alike. You can watch multicolored hot air balloons in flight and learn how they work. On one evening, there’s a Balloon Glow event with live music, food trucks, and activities just for children. Anyone with energy to burn can join in a 5K run after sundown.
Sandy’s sports fans of all ages head to America First Field to see Major League Soccer’s Real Salt Lake and the Utah Royals of the National Women’s Soccer League in action. The stadium seats more than 20,000 for soccer and 25,000 for concerts.
Housing market trends in Utah for 2024
Hoping to buy your first home in Sandy this year? Expect some good news and some cautions. Experts interviewed for a recent article in the Deseret News predict that interest rates, having dropped below 7% in December, will continue to decrease, but housing prices won’t follow suit.
“We got some great news this week from the Fed saying they expect rate cuts in the next year,” Dejan Eskic, senior research fellow at the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, said. “And so, in a matter of a few weeks not, we’ve seen interest rates drop almost a whole percentage point, which is huge for affordability.
“I think it’s plausible to assume that they’re gonna stay in the sixes, and by the end of the year, we could even see fives,” Eskic added, attributing the lower rates to the greater economic stability that’s anticipated this year. But when it comes to housing prices, he expects nothing more than minor fluctuations up or down.
In late November, Zillow reported the average value of a home in Utah as $502,647, down 1.2% from 2022. More than half of homes have sold below their listing prices, and the median sale price is $481,703.
Despite these modestly encouraging trends, many Utahns can’t look forward to becoming home buyers anytime soon. Eskic estimates that only 15% of Utah’s renters earn enough to buy a home selling for $300,000 to $400,000.
In an effort to make homeownership in Utah more affordable, Gov. Spencer J. Cox and Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson have announced plans to allocate $150 million for the construction of 35,000 starter homes by 2028. The governor said that their Utah First Homes Program would also “provide new funds for infrastructure, help for home buyers through grants and sweat equity programs, funding to incentivize innovation, and more.”
