Salt Lake bucks "accidental landlord" trend

State of play: The nationwide share of these "accidental landlord" rental listings on Zillow hit its highest level since late 2022 in October, according to the real estate site.

• That's when 2.3% of U.S. Zillow listings were posted for sale for at least two weeks, then delisted and relisted as a rental within three months.
• The surge in rentals coincided with mortgage rates topping 7%.

Yes, but: Salt Lake's real estate market an outlier in the nationwide trend, tied for the 9th-lowest share of listings from these unintentional landlords last October, when the data was collected.

Between the lines: Homes don't linger long enough to become rentals in seller-friendly markets — and the National Association of Realtors named Salt Lake one of its "10 hottest markets for 2026."

The big picture: Accidental landlords add homes to the rental pool, which can help to ease rent costs in cities that have a lot of them.

Zoom out: Texas and Florida had 7 of the 10 metros with the highest shares of accidental landlords, while Denver led at 4.9%.

• Shares were lowest in the Northeast and Midwest.