Today’s Sandy Mortgage Rates
Mortgage rates as of 9/4/2026
Mortgage rates as of 9/4/2026
Most mortgage conversations we have in Sandy are not first-time buyer conversations. This is a mature east-bench market: people here already own, they have equity, and the question is whether to trade up or tap that equity instead of moving. Both roads hit the same wall, a first mortgage priced well below anything available today, which you give up on the entire balance the moment you touch it.
The situation we see weekly: a homeowner ten years into the house, holding a rate they will never see again, needs money for a remodel, tuition, or to clear credit cards. The instinct is a cash-out refinance. But a cash-out does not only price the new money. It reprices the old money too.
Say you owe $320,000 at 3.25% and want $100,000 in cash. Assume a cash-out prices at 7.00% and a fixed-rate second at 9.50%. Illustrative, not a quote. The relationship is the point.
| Approach | Structure | Approx. first-year interest | Effective cost of the $100,000 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cash-out refinance | $420,000 at 7.00% | ≈$29,400 | ≈19.0% |
| Keep the first, add a second | $320,000 at 3.25% + $100,000 at 9.50% | ≈$19,900 | 9.50% |
Illustration using assumed rates. Actual pricing depends on credit, combined loan-to-value, occupancy and the market on the day you lock.
Under the refinance you pay about $29,400 in first-year interest instead of the roughly $10,400 you already pay. That extra $19,000 buys $100,000 in cash: an effective rate near 19%, worse than most credit cards, on a loan advertised at 7%. The second costs what it says, because it leaves the 3.25% underneath it alone.
The payment comparison confuses people. That $420,000 refinance runs roughly $2,794 a month; a $1,600 first-mortgage payment plus a 20-year second of about $932 comes to $2,532, only $260 apart, because the refinance restarts a 30-year clock. Cheap monthly, expensive lifetime.
Cash-out wins when the balance being repriced is small next to the cash you need. Flip the example: owe $60,000 at 3.25% and need $200,000. Refinancing to $260,000 at 7% costs about $18,200 in first-year interest against $1,950 today: roughly $16,250 of new interest for $200,000, an effective cost near 8.1%, which beats a 9.5% second. Our refinance calculator gets you close.
Once you leave the first mortgage alone there are two ways at the equity, and the choice turns on when you need the money and how much rate risk you can carry.
A fixed-rate second mortgage is closed-end: full amount at closing, fixed rate, amortizing over 10 to 30 years, payment never changes. The trade-off is that interest starts on the whole balance from day one whether you have spent it or not.
A HELOC is revolving, with a draw period, commonly ten years: during which you take what you need, pay interest only on the drawn balance, and can re-draw. At the end of the draw it converts to a repayment period and the payment jumps. The rate is almost always variable, tied to prime, and the interest-only structure hides that risk until the reset.
| Situation | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Known lump-sum need today | Fixed second | Fixed rate, fixed payoff date, no reset risk |
| Phased remodel over 18-24 months | HELOC | Interest only on what you have drawn |
| Consolidating revolving debt | Fixed second | A fixed payoff date is the point |
| Bridging a purchase before you sell | HELOC | Draw at closing, repay from sale proceeds |
| You cannot absorb a payment increase | Fixed second | Variable exposure is what you are avoiding |
Both are sized off combined loan-to-value: first mortgage plus new second, divided by appraised value. Most lenders cap CLTV between 80% and 90%. On a home appraising at $700,000 with a $320,000 first, an 85% cap gives $275,000 of room; at 80% it is $240,000. That spread is why second liens are worth shopping, caps and pricing vary far more between lenders than on first mortgages. On a HELOC, ask about the lifetime cap, the margin over prime, draw and annual fees, and whether a fixed-rate lock is available on portions of the balance.
The most common move-up problem in Sandy: you found the house, your money is in the house you live in, and the seller will not wait.
A sale-contingent offer asks a seller to stop marketing for a deal that depends on a second transaction they cannot control. Against a clean offer it loses almost every time, and sellers who accept one usually insist on a kick-out clause: they keep marketing, and when a clean offer arrives you get 48 or 72 hours to remove your contingency or step aside. Three ways to avoid that.
Cleanest and cheapest, with one hard requirement: set it up before the house goes on the market. Lenders will not fund a home equity line on a listed property, and many will not fund one on a recently listed one. Every year Sandy homeowners call us the week after their listing went live, and by then it is gone. Done in order, you open the line while you still live there, draw for the down payment at the new closing, and repay it from the sale proceeds.
A bridge loan is short-term financing secured by the departing residence and retired by the sale, usually six to twelve months, often interest-only. It costs more than a HELOC but is available when a HELOC is not, including after the home is listed. Two cautions: if it requires monthly payments, your purchase underwriter will generally count them in your debt-to-income; and a bridge assumes the sale happens. If the old house sits, you hold a loan with a maturity date and no proceeds to pay it.
If your income supports both payments, buy with whatever down payment you can assemble and apply the sale proceeds afterward through a recast: a lump-sum principal payment, then the servicer re-amortizes over the remaining term. Same rate, same term, lower payment, no appraisal and no new underwriting, for a fee typically in the low hundreds. Most conventional loans permit recasting; government loans generally do not. Confirm eligibility before you close.
All three leave you carrying two homes for a period. Before we structure a buy-before-sell we want reserves covering both housing payments for several months. Sometimes the right advice is to sell first, rent sixty days, and buy clean.
Whether the purchase works on paper depends on how the underwriter treats the departing residence. Three outcomes.
Sold and closed. Its payment leaves your debt-to-income entirely, documented by the settlement statement.
Kept and vacant, or still occupied by you. The full housing payment, principal, interest, taxes, insurance, HOA and mortgage insurance, counts on top of the new one. This is the wall most move-up buyers hit.
Kept as a rental. Conventional guidelines generally let you use a percentage of gross lease rent, commonly 75%, the rest treated as vacancy and maintenance, to offset that housing expense. That takes an executed lease and proof you received the security deposit. Without both, most underwriters count the whole payment.
A lease your brother-in-law signed and never funded will not survive underwriting. FHA is more restrictive here, with rules that can turn on distance and equity. And if the rent does not cover the payment, the shortfall becomes a liability rather than netting to zero. Tell us at pre-approval, not after you are under contract.
For 2026, Salt Lake County uses the national baseline conforming limit of $832,750 on a one-unit property, and the FHA limit for the Salt Lake City metro is $637,100.
| Program | 2026 limit, one unit, Salt Lake County | What it means for a Sandy move-up |
|---|---|---|
| Conforming (Fannie/Freddie) | $832,750 | Above this the loan is a jumbo and the rules change |
| FHA | $637,100 | Often below a Sandy move-up price; more useful here for refinance |
| VA, full entitlement | No loan limit | County limits apply only on partial or reduced entitlement |
| USDA | Not available | Salt Lake County is entirely inside the urbanized area |
2026 FHFA conforming limit and HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-23 FHA limits. Only Summit and Wasatch ($1,150,000), Wayne ($997,050) and Grand ($839,500) sit above the Utah baseline.
A jumbo loan is not a worse loan, but it is a different underwrite, and a conforming pre-approval does not carry over. Expect tighter reserves measured in months of full housing payment held after closing, closer income review, a lower maximum debt-to-income, a larger down payment, and sometimes a second appraisal. Jumbo pricing is also less uniform: conforming rates cluster in one secondary market, while jumbos sit on balance sheets priced to each lender’s appetite. The spread between best and worst quote on one file is routinely wider.
Price this before accepting jumbo terms. Split the financing: a first mortgage at or below $832,750, the rest covered by a simultaneous second or HELOC at closing, classically an 80/10/10, though the ratios flex. It keeps the large first mortgage in conforming territory, avoids mortgage insurance, and puts only the smaller slice at the second-lien rate.
Many people here bought years ago with a low down payment and have built equity without ever revisiting the loan. If you are still paying mortgage insurance on a house you have owned a decade, there is a good chance you should not be.
Borrower-requested cancellation at 80%. Once the balance reaches 80% of the original value, the lesser of purchase price or original appraisal. You can request cancellation in writing, if you are current and have no junior liens.
Automatic termination at 78%. The servicer must terminate PMI at 78% of original value on the original amortization schedule, with a backstop at the midpoint of the amortization period.
Appreciation-based removal. The one people miss, and the one that fits Sandy. You can ask the servicer to cancel based on current value, supported by a new appraisal or broker price opinion the servicer orders. Agency guidelines generally impose seasoning, commonly two years of ownership at a lower loan-to-value threshold, or five years at 80%.
This is the part that costs Sandy homeowners real money, and it is misunderstood because it used to work differently. On FHA loans with case numbers assigned on or after June 3, 2013, nearly every FHA loan of the last decade. The annual mortgage insurance premium is permanent for the life of the loan when the original loan-to-value was above 90%. A standard 3.5%-down FHA purchase carries mortgage insurance forever. It does not fall off at 80% or 78%. Paying the loan down does not end it. Your home doubling in value does not end it. At 90% or less it runs eleven years, but very few FHA borrowers put 10% down.
The only exit from lifetime FHA mortgage insurance is refinancing out of FHA into a conventional loan. That is the entire list.
So the calculation for a Sandy owner who bought FHA years ago is a real one. If your FHA rate is well below market, refinancing to shed the premium can cost more than it saves. If your rate is near market and you have 20% equity or better, it is usually a clear win. Call 801-576-9336, or see our refinance page.
The other half of a mature market is households moving the other direction, owners who raised families on the bench and now want something smaller, often with far more equity than income. That breaks conventional qualification: debt-to-income compares monthly debt to monthly income, so a retiree with a paid-off house and a substantial portfolio can look weak on paper while being the strongest borrower in the pipeline.
Asset depletion, also called asset-based or asset-utilization qualification, converts qualifying assets into monthly income for underwriting by dividing eligible assets by a fixed number of months: agency employment-related-asset programs commonly use 240 months, non-agency and portfolio programs use shorter divisors. What counts is where these files are won or lost. Retirement accounts are typically discounted, funds you cannot access without penalty may be excluded, and assets used for down payment, closing costs or reserves cannot also count as income. Send us your accounts and fixed income before you list, and we will tell you what you qualify for.
For owners aged 62 or older who intend to stay put, a reverse mortgage is a different route to the equity: a lump sum, monthly payments or a line of credit, with no monthly mortgage payment. The balance grows rather than shrinks and comes due when the last borrower dies, sells or permanently leaves. You must still keep taxes and insurance current, maintain the home and occupy it. It is a legitimate tool and a poor default: it reduces what passes to heirs and is wrong for anyone likely to move soon. HUD requires counseling before application.
Utah taxes a primary residence on 55% of market value, the 45% primary residential exemption, covering the dwelling plus one acre. Salt Lake County’s 2025 average total rate was 1.0504%, the highest of Utah’s major counties.
The point that matters for a move-up: Utah has nothing resembling California’s Proposition 13. No purchase-price assessment cap, and nothing carries your old assessed value to a new home. Assessors value property at market annually, so your tax is calculated on the new home’s value from the start. Buyers relocating from California often assume otherwise.
| Market value | Taxable value (55%) | Annual tax at 1.0504% | Monthly escrow |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500,000 | $275,000 | ≈$2,889 | ≈$241 |
| $700,000 | $385,000 | ≈$4,044 | ≈$337 |
| $900,000 | $495,000 | ≈$5,199 | ≈$433 |
Calculated on 55% of market value at Salt Lake County’s 2025 average total rate, Utah State Tax Commission. Tax areas vary; we use your actual address.
Moving from a $500,000 home to a $900,000 home in the same county adds roughly $192 a month to escrow before principal and interest. And the exemption attaches to the property you occupy, so if you temporarily hold two homes the one you are not living in may lose it and be taxed on full market value.
Not every Sandy buyer is trading up. Utah Housing’s FirstHome caps income at $126,100 for one to two people and $145,000 for three or more, with a $666,600 price cap that rules out much of Sandy’s inventory; the FHA/VA product starts at a 620 score and is open to repeat buyers. HomeAgain, NoMI and Score are currently suspended. On costs, Utah has no transfer tax and no documentary stamp tax, and recording is a flat per-document fee. What extends a Sandy closing is rarely underwriting; it is coordination between a second-lien approval, a departing-residence lease, and two closings that must sequence correctly. Start a free loan inquiry or call 801-576-9336.
We finance homes throughout Sandy: Alta Canyon, Willow Creek, Granite, Pepperwood, Dimple Dell, Bell Canyon, Hidden Valley, Quail Hollow, Historic Sandy, Crescent, Union, Sandy Hills, Altara, Bella Vista, Silver Mesa, Willow Canyon and White City.
The questions shift across the city. On the upper bench, Pepperwood, Granite, Willow Creek, Bell Canyon: purchases push against the $832,750 ceiling, and the conversation is jumbo underwriting versus a conforming first with a simultaneous second. Through the established middle it is overwhelmingly about equity. In Historic Sandy, Union, Crescent and the White City area you get older housing stock, appraisal condition calls, and entry-level questions.
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It depends on your existing rate and how large that balance is relative to the cash you need. A cash-out refinance reprices your whole balance at today’s rate, so with a low-rate first mortgage the effective cost of the money you receive can be far above the advertised rate. Owe $320,000 at 3.25% and want $100,000: a cash-out at 7% costs roughly 19% on the new money, while a second at 9.5% costs 9.5%. Cash-out wins only when the balance being repriced is small relative to the cash you need.
A fixed-rate second gives you the full amount at closing at a fixed rate with a fixed payoff date, and interest runs on the whole balance from day one. A HELOC is revolving: a draw period of usually ten years, interest only on what you have drawn, then a repayment period when the payment jumps, at a variable rate tied to prime. Use a fixed second for a known lump sum or debt consolidation, a HELOC for phased spending or bridging a purchase.
Yes, three ways. Draw a home equity line before you list, use it for the down payment, and repay it from the sale: cheapest, but lenders will not fund a HELOC on a listed property, so timing is critical. Use a bridge loan secured by the departing residence, which costs more but is available after listing. Or qualify for both payments and recast the new loan with the sale proceeds.
If it is sold and closed, its payment leaves your debt-to-income entirely. If you keep it vacant, the full housing payment counts on top of the new one. If you rent it, conventional guidelines generally let you use a percentage of gross lease rent, commonly 75%, to offset the payment, but you need an executed lease and proof you received the security deposit. FHA is more restrictive here.
Above $832,750 on a one-unit property, the 2026 baseline conforming limit that applies in Salt Lake County. Upper east bench areas of Sandy cross that line regularly. Jumbo loans carry tighter reserves, closer income review, lower maximum debt-to-income and larger down payments. A conforming pre-approval does not carry over. It is worth pricing a conforming first with a simultaneous second against a straight jumbo.
On a conventional loan, yes. You can request cancellation when the balance reaches 80% of original value, and the servicer must terminate automatically at 78% on the original amortization schedule. You can also ask for cancellation based on current appreciated value with a new appraisal the servicer orders, subject to seasoning that commonly runs two to five years.
On most FHA loans written in the last decade, no. For case numbers assigned on or after June 3, 2013, the annual premium lasts the life of the loan when the original loan-to-value was above 90%, any standard 3.5%-down FHA purchase. It does not fall off at 80% or 78%, and appreciation does not end it. At 90% or less it runs eleven years. The only exit is refinancing into a conventional loan.
Yes. Utah has no purchase-price assessment cap like California’s Proposition 13, and nothing carries your old assessed value to a new home. Utah taxes a primary residence on 55% of market value after the 45% primary residential exemption. At Salt Lake County’s 2025 average total rate of 1.0504%, a $500,000 home runs roughly $2,889 a year and a $900,000 home roughly $5,199, about $192 more per month in escrow.
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