St. George MSA issued 262 building permits in December — up 36% from a year ago.
That's the headline. Here's the part that matters more.
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What’s Moving
262 total permits in December, up 35.8% YoY. Best December in at least two years. Builders didn't slow down for the holidays.
238 of those were single-family homes — 91% of all permits, up 40.8% from last year. Multifamily? 24 units. Same as December 2024. Exactly.
Median listing price: $599,900. Down from $659,000 twelve months ago. That's a $59K drop while permits surged. Supply is winning for the first time in a long time.
1,772 active listings — up 20% from December 2024's 1,474. More homes on the market, softer prices, still-strong permit volume. The equation is shifting.
Smart Take
This week's Smart Take connects the permit concentration, the infrastructure timeline, and one stat from the Nov–Dec trend that shows exactly where the supply bottleneck appears next. Pro subscribers only.
PRO
🔒 THE NUMBER
$59,000 — the decline in median listing price from December 2024 to December 2025.
Permits up 36%, prices down 9%, inventory up 20% — all in the same twelve months. The supply side finally caught enough of the demand curve to move the needle. For buyers, that's the best news in three years. For builders pricing lots and subs bidding work? The math on margins just got tighter.
PRO
🔒 SMART TAKE
Single-family is doing everything right now. 238 out of 262 permits — that ratio held all December. Multifamily had two strong months earlier in 2025 (March: 175 units, September: 70 units) but finished flat. Whatever drove those spikes didn't carry into year-end.
But the number that should stop contractors mid-coffee is this: every major infrastructure project on the UDOT and county books points at the same corridor. I-15 widening between Exit 6 and Exit 8, mid-2026 start through 2028. Exit 5 interchange off SR-7, $15M project. George Washington Blvd bridge, construction starting this spring. Northern Corridor approved January 21st, design phase now. That's well over $100M of infrastructure investment aimed directly at the southern corridor — Desert Color, Desert Canyons, Washington Fields.
December's single-family surge almost certainly lives in those same ZIP codes. Watch where the permits file in January and February. If the pattern holds — high single-family, southern corridor, multifamily flat — this isn't seasonal noise. It's a structural shift in where Washington County is actually building.
Until next week,
DGB