Today’s West Valley City Mortgage Rates
Mortgage rates as of 8/27/2026
Mortgage rates as of 8/27/2026
West Valley City is Utah’s second-largest city and its most diverse, and the mortgage conversation here is not the one we have on the east bench. Up the hill the problem is the ceiling, loan limits and income caps a two-earner professional household blows past. Here the ceiling almost never comes up. The constraint is the floor: cash to close, credit depth, and income that is real but does not arrive as one W-2.
That changes which programs matter. FHA does most of the work here, not as a fallback but because it fits, and Utah Housing assistance is usable in this city in a way it simply is not in Holladay. We have financed the west side since 2002, our office is on Redwood Road, and we work with Spanish-speaking borrowers every week.
Plenty of loan officers treat FHA as the consolation prize. In this market that is an expensive mistake. FHA allows 3.5% down at a 580 credit score, and 10% down between 500 and 579; the whole down payment can be gifted with a gift letter and a traceable transfer. It also tolerates higher debt-to-income ratios than conventional financing and is more forgiving of a past bankruptcy or foreclosure once seasoned.
The cost is mortgage insurance: an upfront premium financed into the loan plus an annual premium collected monthly, which at the minimum down payment generally stays for the life of the loan rather than dropping off at 20% equity the way conventional PMI does. So the conventional comparison is worth running. Above roughly 700, conventional PMI is often cheaper and it cancels; below that the math flips, because conventional PMI prices steeply on low scores and FHA’s does not.
We price FHA, conventional and Utah Housing side by side; see loan types. And FHA loans are assumable, which in a higher-rate market makes your loan an asset when you sell.
For 2026 Salt Lake County uses the baseline conforming limit of $832,750 on a one-unit property, with an FHA limit of $637,100.
| Program | 2026 limit, Salt Lake County, one unit | Minimum down payment |
|---|---|---|
| FHA | $637,100 | 3.5% at 580+ |
| Conforming conventional | $832,750 | 3% first-time / 5% standard |
| VA, full entitlement | No loan limit | 0% |
| Utah Housing FirstHome (price cap) | $666,600 | 0% with layered assistance |
2026 FHA limits per HUD Mortgagee Letter 2025-23; conforming limits per FHFA.
Here is where West Valley City differs from Salt Lake City proper. In the Avenues or Federal Heights that $637,100 ceiling is a live constraint, and buyers there regularly discover they cannot use FHA on the house they want. On this side of the valley it is mostly trivia, nearly every purchase we see lands comfortably beneath it.
What stops people here is cash to close and credit: a better problem, because unlike a statutory limit, both are things we can work on with you.
Utah Housing Corporation is the state’s assistance engine, and FirstHome has two gates: an income cap and a maximum purchase price. In Salt Lake County those are $126,100 for a one-to-two-person household, $145,000 for three or more, and a maximum purchase price of $666,600.
| Utah Housing program | Min credit score | First-time buyer required? | Income limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| FirstHome | 660 | Yes: exceptions for single parents and veterans | $126,100 / $145,000 in Salt Lake County |
| FHA/VA product | 620 | No | $165,200 statewide |
| Freddie Mac HFA Advantage | 680 (700 on 2-4 units) | No | $165,200 statewide |
Utah Housing limits as currently published; UHC changes these without notice, so we verify at application.
On an east-bench page those caps are why we tell people no: the price limit rules out most of Holladay and the Sandy foothills, and a dual-income household clears the income cap without trying. West Valley City is the opposite. The $666,600 cap sits well above the range most buyers here are shopping, so the program applies to the houses you are actually touring, and the income caps sit where a working household with two earners can realistically land underneath. That makes this the most attainable large market in Salt Lake County, and the mistake we see most often here is a buyer who never asks.
Current and important: Utah Housing lists HomeAgain, NoMI and Score as suspended, only FirstHome, the FHA/VA product and Freddie HFA Advantage are fundable now. See our Utah Housing page and no-down-payment page.
Utah Housing assistance is not a grant and it is not forgiven. It is a 30-year fixed second mortgage closing behind your first, in one of two shapes.
| Traditional (amortizing) | Deferred | |
|---|---|---|
| Amount | Up to 6% of the first mortgage | Up to 3.5% of the first mortgage |
| Hard cap | $27,500 | $27,500 |
| Rate | First mortgage rate + 1%, capped at 8% | 3.5% deferred simple interest |
| Monthly payment | Yes, amortizes over 30 years | None |
| Due | Paid down monthly | Sale, refinance or maturity |
Take a $400,000 purchase on FHA: 3.5% down is $14,000, plus closing costs and escrows.
The traditional 6% option is calculated on the first mortgage, not the price. On a loan of roughly $386,000 that is about $23,160, under the cap: it covers the entire $14,000 down payment and leaves roughly $9,000 for closing costs. The cost is a second payment amortizing at your rate plus one percent, which the underwriter counts in your debt-to-income.
The deferred 3.5% option on the same loan is about $13,500, roughly the down payment and little else, but carries no monthly payment, so it does not eat your ratios. Interest accrues at 3.5% simple and comes due at sale or refinance.
Which is right depends on whether your constraint is cash or ratios. The $27,500 cap applies regardless of price, so assistance covers a smaller share as the price climbs. Call 801-576-9336 or start a free loan inquiry and we will price both.
Many of the buyers we work with here are not a couple with two W-2s. They are a household: parents and adult children, siblings buying together, a family pooling income. Underwriting accommodates that, but the rules are specific.
A non-occupant co-borrower signs the note and is fully liable but does not live in the house, most often a parent helping an adult child. Their income counts, and so do their debts. On FHA this works at the standard 3.5% down payment when the co-borrower is a family member related by blood, marriage or law; outside that definition, maximum financing drops sharply, so tell us the exact legal relationship up front. Conventional allows it under its own constraints, but FHA is friendlier. One honest warning: the loan sits on the co-borrower’s credit.
Nothing limits a loan to two borrowers. Three or four people can be on the same mortgage, each contributing income and each having credit pulled. But pricing uses the lowest credit score among all borrowers, so a fourth borrower with a 590 score can raise everyone’s rate, sometimes the answer is to leave that person off and use gift funds.
Documentation is where these files live or die. Overtime, bonus and commission usually need a two-year history and get averaged; a job started six weeks ago cannot be counted yet. Child support, disability, Social Security and pension income work with award letters and evidence of continuance, and non-taxable income can often be grossed up. Boarder income, rent from someone in the home who is not on the loan: is usable under certain conventional programs, but needs a documented payment history, so start making those deposits traceable today.
FHA lets you buy a two-to-four unit property at the same low down payment as a single-family home, as long as you occupy one unit. Three and a half percent down on a fourplex is not a typo, and FHA’s limits on two, three and four unit properties are higher than the one-unit $637,100 figure.
Better still, rent from the units you do not occupy can help you qualify. The appraiser completes a rent schedule, and the underwriter counts a portion of it. A vacancy and maintenance factor is deducted, so you get no credit for gross rent. A borrower who cannot qualify for a $450,000 single-family house may well qualify for a duplex at a similar price.
Before you go looking. On FHA three- and four-unit purchases the property must pass a self-sufficiency test, net rental income has to cover the payment. Duplexes are exempt, which is why more owner-occupants end up in duplexes. Multi-unit financing also requires cash reserves after closing, and occupancy is not optional. And a house with a basement apartment is not automatically a duplex: if that unit is not legal and not on the appraisal, the rent is treated very differently.
A great many creditworthy people here have almost no credit history. They pay cash, they have never carried a credit card, or they built their financial life in another country and arrived with nothing on a domestic credit report. Automated underwriting returns nothing useful, because there is nothing to score. That is not a rejection, the file needs to be manually underwritten, and FHA is built to do it using alternative tradelines.
A manual underwrite is a human reading your file instead of an algorithm scoring it, someone who can see four years of on-time rent, which is what a score is a proxy for anyway. In exchange, manual underwrites carry tighter debt-to-income limits and want compensating factors: reserves, job stability, and low payment shock. If you pay $1,800 in rent and the new payment is $1,950, the evidence is on your side; at $2,900, expect questions.
Sometimes the faster path is a few months of building two or three real tradelines so automated underwriting can score you. We review credit at no cost and will say honestly whether waiting pays. And note: lawful permanent residents are treated the same as citizens, and non-permanent residents with valid work authorization are FHA-eligible.
West Valley City runs on small business: trades and construction, landscaping, trucking, auto repair, restaurants, cleaning, salons. If you own one, you know the problem: you are good at minimizing taxable income, and underwriting reads your tax return as the definitive statement of what you earn, taking net income after every deduction and averaging two years.
Bank statement loans are the most useful answer: instead of tax returns, the lender uses 12 or 24 months of bank statements and calculates income from actual deposits with an expense factor applied. It is a non-QM loan, so expect a higher rate and a larger down payment, but it is a real mortgage and it closes. Profit and loss programs qualify from a CPA-prepared statement, and asset depletion converts liquid assets into an income stream. See our alternative and non-QM page.
As a broker we are not confined to one lender’s box, which matters here: two lenders can read identical bank statements and land thousands apart on qualifying income. Before assuming you need non-QM, let us run the conventional calculation, add-backs often lift usable income well above the bottom line.
People ask about USDA constantly. Utah has a lot of USDA territory, but no part of Salt Lake County is USDA-eligible. The whole county sits inside the urbanized area, so no West Valley City address works, and any USDA quote on one is a mistake that will surface later. USDA is real elsewhere in Utah: Grantsville, Heber City, Payson, Brigham City.
Here, zero down comes down to two paths. VA, if you are eligible: no down payment, no monthly mortgage insurance, and no loan limit with full entitlement. The one-time funding fee scales with the down payment: below 5% down it is 2.15% first use and 3.30% subsequent, at 5-9.99% it is 1.50% either way, at 10% or more 1.25%. That first-use penalty exists only below 5% down, so a repeat borrower putting 5% down cuts the fee from 3.30% to 1.50%. Veterans with a disability rating are generally exempt. Otherwise it is Utah Housing assistance layered on an FHA or conventional first mortgage.
Utah exempts 45% of a primary residence’s market value from property tax, so you are taxed on 55%, covering the dwelling plus up to one acre. Salt Lake County’s 2025 average total rate was 1.0504%, the highest of Utah’s major counties.
| Market value | Taxable value (55%) | Annual tax at 1.0504% | Monthly escrow |
|---|---|---|---|
| $400,000 | $220,000 | ≈$2,311 | ≈$193 |
| $450,000 | $247,500 | ≈$2,600 | ≈$217 |
Calculated on 55% of market value at Salt Lake County’s 2025 average total rate. Individual tax areas vary.
Taxes and insurance land in your debt-to-income, so on a tight file the difference between two tax areas can change your maximum price. We use the actual tax area for the address, not the county average. Be careful with the tax figure in a listing, too: if the home was a rental without the primary residential exemption, the published bill may be well above what you will pay.
Utah is an inexpensive state to close in. There is no real estate transfer tax and no documentary stamp tax, nothing tied to sale price at all. Recording is a flat per-document fee, the same on a $300,000 house and a $1.5 million one; H.B. 38 took most counties to $45 per document effective May 6, 2026.
What actually moves the number is lender fees, title insurance and prepaid escrows, and almost nobody shops the first one. Our fees run about 25% below many competitors and we charge no processing or junk fees. When you are stretching to cover 3.5% down, a thousand dollars of avoidable lender fees is the difference between closing and not closing, see our no-fee mortgage page. Two more levers: seller concessions within program limits, and gift funds covering the entire FHA down payment. We close in three weeks or less on a clean file.
We finance homes throughout West Valley City and the surrounding west side: Granger, Hunter, Chesterfield, the Redwood Road corridor, the Valley Fair Mall and city center area, Lake Park, Decker Lake, Highbury, Copper Ridge, the Bangerter Highway corridor, the 3500 South and 4100 South corridors, the Glendale-adjacent east edge along Redwood, the Taylorsville border near 4700 South, and the Kearns and Magna edges.
Different parts of the city raise different questions. Older Granger and Chesterfield stock brings appraisal condition items and unpermitted basement finishes an appraiser will not give value to. Small multi-family product along the arterial corridors opens up owner-occupied 2-4 unit financing. And on new construction at the west and south edges, the builder’s preferred lender is often not the better deal.
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For 2026 the FHA limit on a one-unit property in Salt Lake County, which includes West Valley City, is $637,100. Unlike in Salt Lake City proper, that ceiling rarely constrains a purchase here, most buyers shop well below it, so the practical limits are your down payment and your credit. Two-to-four unit properties carry higher limits.
Yes, and this is one of the markets where it genuinely fits. Salt Lake County’s FirstHome income cap is $126,100 for a one-to-two-person household and $145,000 for three or more, with a maximum purchase price of $666,600, well above typical West Valley City price points, unlike on the east bench. Assistance is a 30-year fixed second mortgage: up to 6% of the first mortgage amortizing, or 3.5% deferred, both capped at $27,500.
Yes. A non-occupant co-borrower signs the note and is fully liable, and their income counts toward qualification along with their debts. On FHA you keep the standard 3.5% down payment when the co-borrower is a family member related by blood, marriage or law; outside that definition a much larger down payment is required. Pricing uses the lowest credit score among all borrowers.
Yes. FHA allows a two-to-four unit purchase at the same 3.5% minimum down payment as a single-family home, as long as you occupy one unit, and FHA limits on two, three and four unit properties are higher than the one-unit figure. The appraiser estimates market rent for the other units, and a portion of it, net of a vacancy factor, helps you qualify. Three and four unit purchases must also pass a self-sufficiency test; duplexes are exempt.
Often yes, through FHA with a manual underwrite. When there are not enough traditional tradelines to score, the lender can build a credit profile from alternative tradelines: twelve months of documented on-time rent, utilities in your name, insurance you pay directly, and cell phone or internet accounts. Rent history is strongest, so if you pay your landlord in cash, switch to check or bank transfer to create a paper trail. Manual underwrites carry tighter debt-to-income limits and want compensating factors such as reserves and job stability.
Usually. Standard underwriting averages net income after deductions over two years, which understates a profitable cash-heavy business. Bank statement loans qualify you from 12 or 24 months of deposits with an expense factor applied instead of tax returns; profit and loss programs and asset depletion are alternatives. These are non-QM loans, so expect a higher rate and a larger down payment. Ask us to run the conventional calculation first, add-backs often raise usable income well above the bottom line.
No. No part of Salt Lake County is USDA-eligible, because the entire county sits inside the urbanized area. Zero down here means a VA loan if you are eligible, or Utah Housing down payment assistance layered onto an FHA or conventional first mortgage. USDA does remain available elsewhere in Utah, including Grantsville, Heber City, Payson, Brigham City and Tremonton.
Yes. We work with Spanish-speaking borrowers regularly and can handle your application, your questions and your loan documents in Spanish. Call 801-576-9336 and tell us which language you prefer.
At Axent Funding we take pride in our great customer service. Our staff is here for you, so don’t hesitate to contact us if you have a question, a problem, or a suggestion.
We are a Utah mortgage broker offering conventional, FHA, Utah Housing / no down payment, VA, jumbo and home equity lines, plus niche products for condotel, one-time close construction, home remodel, reverse mortgage and debt consolidation. See Loan Types for the full list.
We walk you through the whole mortgage process and make sure your transaction closes smoothly. We can close a loan in 3 weeks or less.
Every loan program we offer, described side by side, so you can see which one fits.
Payment, affordability, amortization, refinance break-even and bi-weekly payoff.
Loan limits, Utah Housing caps, property tax and USDA coverage, county by county.
Axent Funding is licensed statewide and closes loans in every Utah county. We publish in-depth local guides for the markets we work in most: loan limits, Utah Housing eligibility, property tax and USDA coverage all change at the county line.