Apartment amenities in Salt Lake City are becoming more extravagant

As Salt Lake County faces an unprecedented apartment boom, luxury complexes competing to attract renters are offering amenities beyond the average gym and pool.

• In Salt Lake City, "we have developers coming in and it's kind of like a showcase of who can bring the next best thing to the market," Candice Waddell, director of real estate for Greystar, a property management firm, tells Axios.

Why it matters: The push comes as many would-be homebuyers rent for longer, incentivizing properties to compete for a growing cohort of high-income renters, Axios' Sami Sparber and Tory Lysik report.

By the numbers: The number of Salt Lake City metro renters earning $150,000 or more grew 100.6% between 2016 and 2021, per U.S. Census data.

• That's higher than the national average increase of 87.5%.
• The number of renter-occupied households in the Salt Lake City area rose 7.8% between 2016 and 2021.

Details: A movie theater, a golf simulator and a gym that’s more than 7,000 square feet are among some of the amenities that will be offered later this summer at the Post District near downtown that will encompass four apartment communities.

• At Harvest apartments, managed by Greystar, in Salt Lake City's Marmalade neighborhood, amenities include a resort-style, heated pool and six terraces, some of which boast fire pits, TVs and grills.

State of play: Waddell says many of these luxuries may be new to local renters. She notes plenty of the trends started on the East Coast and have worked their way west across the U.S.

• With the rise in employees working from home, Wadell says it's increasingly common to see apartment features like co-working spaces and soundproofing.

What they're saying: "What people are really looking for is places to invite their friends," Christopher Sullivan, property manager at the Post District, tells Axios.

The big picture: Apartment construction is surging nationwide. Historically, new rental housing tends to hit at the higher-end of the market, Chris Salviati, senior economist at Apartment List, tells Axios.

• He notes rising project costs have created a need to charge higher rents than before.

Between the lines: High listing prices and mortgage rates aren’t making homebuying as desirable as it once was, Salviati says.

• "A lot of folks in that high-income band, who in the past would have owned homes, are now continuing to rent — whether that's for lifestyle reasons or because they are feeling like it's not a good time to buy," he says.