I live in Ogden, own an STR in Kanab, have explored just about every meter of Utah, and have looked into buying STRs in most places here.
Utah, sadly, is a tough area for STRs.
St George is an awesome place, but STR regulations are tough. You're limited to a few STR zoned areas, most of which require a city approved property manager (of which their are only a couple, each of which charge 30% for management given their monopolies), self management is not allowed in most of the few STR allowed areas. And oversupply barely begins to describe the area. Sadly, an area for people that like to vacation there and want to supplement the mortgage a bit. Not a place to cash flow.
I love Ogden Valley (Eden, Huntsville, etc) but property values are through the roof with legit 2nd home buyers and uber rich farmers buying up all the homes, and occupancy is low. You're talking multi million dollar properties that are lucky to do $60k in revenue. Obviously not anywhere close to cash flowing.
Park City has tourism, but prices are extremely high and, again, oversupply is nuts. We recently spent the weekend at a nice property on main street for about $299 a night that was pretty empty even during high season and we were able to book it a week before the trip. With that location, it had to be a $5M property. We haven't explored the area for investments intimately because just at a high level glance it didn't really seem doable at current home values. There's a POSSIBILITY you could make something work with a condo over at the Canyons or something like that. Last time I underwrote that it worked for a little bit of cash flow (nothing to write home about). But that was pre-pandemic when the condos were half the price they are now.
Hurricane is a fun area, but the waiting list for an STR permit is 10 years. The permit does transfer if you find someone selling a home that has one, but you can expect to pay double market value for that property and, again, totally wreck any chance of cashflow.
Toquerville (near Hurricane) requires you to be a resident of the city to run an STR.
La Verkin (same area) is one of the most doable spots. STR permits are broken down by areas of the city (each area has a limited number of permits available). When we looked 2 years ago there were still some areas with permits available. Not sure about now. Also new builds aren't eligible to be STRs. The property must have been used as a residency for at least 1 year (they're trying to prevent developers from building homes specifically for STR).
Kanab is just such a freaking cool area that I was initially drawn to as a fine art photographer (ryanmoyer.com plug!) and is where we bought, and it's been good to us. But we bought before the big price run-up. It would be much tougher at current prices. Other headwinds are that the locals HATE tourism and will hate you, and vote against everything that helps tourism. Last year they voted against a proposition by the NP service that would have had Zion shuttles run all the way into downtown Kanab, so instead of only the current south entrance visitors center shuttle stop, you also would have been able to catch a Zion shuttle direct from Kanab. They voted that down by a lot. Then they voted down a measure to add a golf course to the area as well. Oversupply is an issue here as well, as STRs have exploded since Covid when everyone started temporarily making even more road trips to Zion. That's only going to get worse as while everyone was up in arms fighting the golf course, the city slipped in a measure for a new development under everyone's noses that will add something like 300 new vacation homes to the area. So things are decent now, if you can find a super great deal, but I'm not sure they'll stay that way for the future and there are a lot of headwinds for growth. Locals are obsessed with "making sure Kanab does not become the next Moab".
And speaking of which, Moab is another awesome place, but STR restrictions are very tight. At this point you're looking at condos way out of town for $800k that might gross 1/12th of that or so annually is my impression. Haven't spent a ton of time on this area (in STR investor terms, I spend a ton of time there as an STR guest) but that's my impression.
Salt Lake City I have admittedly not spent as much time researching as I should given that it's right next door to me. But my understanding is that it's technically illegal but unenforced. So right now everyone operating there is operating illegally, but the city doesn't enforce it at all. But that could change at any time. It's also the same story of the supply blew up during the pandemic, and now the demand is receding back to normal while the supply stays high.
Bear Lake is beautiful, and I need to spend more time looking there as well, but again property values are up probably more than 100% in the last 2 years and it's VERY seasonal (pretty much only rentable in the summer), so I can't imagine returns are very good there.
I love Utah, but it's a tough STR area. The reality is that, unless you're looking for somewhere that your primary goal is your own usage, it's just too late. Over the last 10 years the state has transformed from "Utah, why would you go to Utah"? to the hip new beautiful place, and property values have exploded as people have moved here and bought legitimate second homes here that they intend to use for themselves. And alongside the soaring property values have been extremely tight restrictions all across the state as every area struggles with a shortage of affordable housing for low wage tourism workers.
I'm happy to answer any questions as best I can, but it's just a tough market unless you really want a place primarily for yourself.
