Alta, Utah.
Typical home $2,242,494 (+19.0% in a year). Salt Lake City, UT metro.
to buy the typical home at today's mortgage rate — +$2,824 (+32%) since Dec 2023.
- 1 year
- Up $357,570 +19%
- $1,884,924$2,242,494 since Sep 2025
Monthly payment to buy the typical home
Home value × that month's 30-year mortgage rate, 20% down, principal and interest. This is the line households feel: prices and rates compound each other.
- Alta$11,770
- Utah$2,797
- United States$1,922
Typical home values in Alta, UT rose 19.0% over the past year — faster than the nation's +1.2%.
Living in Alta, Salt Lake County, Utah
Alta is a town of 228 people in Salt Lake County. Unemployment in Salt Lake County was 3.7% in August 2026, and the county had 1.5% more jobs in 2025 than the year before. The most people in Salt Lake County work in schools and health care, then professional services.
Written by AI Claude Sonnet 5.5 wrote this on 23 October 2026 from the figures here, a list of nearby places and what it knows. It can be wrong or out of date.
What it’s like
The place. Alta is a very small mountain town at the top of a canyon in Salt Lake County, with far fewer residents than most places people think of as towns. Homes here are worth much more than a typical American house, and household incomes across the county are well above what many parts of the country see. Winters are long and cold, and the town gets a great deal of snow, far more than most of the country; summers are mild and pleasant.
Work. Residents of Alta work mostly in schools, hospitals and social care, in professional and business services, in shops, and in manufacturing. Across Salt Lake County, unemployment is low and has barely changed over the past year, and the county has added a few more jobs than it had the year before. Among the county's largest workplaces are the University of Utah, U of U Hospitals & Clinics, and Salt Lake County itself.
Things to do. Skiing is the town's main draw, and Alta Ski Area and Solitude Mountain Resort are both in or beside town. Cecret Lake, a small reservoir, is also close by, and Deer Valley is a short drive away for more time on the slopes. In summer the high country around the reservoir is open for walking.
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What people in Salt Lake County work in
Employed residents by industry, from the Census survey. Salt Lake County had 808,479 jobs in 2025, 1.5% more than the year before (Bureau of Labor Statistics).
Weather through the year
Coldest in December, with highs near 30° and lows near 14°; warmest in July, with highs near 73° and lows near 50°. About 458 inches of snow and 47 inches of rain and melted snow a year.
Average daily high and low, 1991–2020, at the Alta weather station, a mile away (NOAA).
Largest workplaces in Salt Lake County
- University of UtahUniversity or college16,385
- U of U Hospitals & ClinicsGeneral hospital12,298FTE
- Salt Lake CountyGeneral services departments, government8,613
- Western Governors UniversityUniversity or college8,420
- Bodell Construction an Aecon CompanyIndustrial building construction, general contractors6,260
- Salt Lake CountyRecreational sports club facilities4,565
- Sutter HealthHealthcare3,932
- Intermountain Medical CenterGeneral hospital3,720FTE
Staff on average in 2025, as each workplace reported it to OSHA with its injury records: 1,130 workplaces with 20 or more staff, 202,386 people in all across the county; Alta has one of its own. Colleges come from IPEDS (NCES, 2023–24) and hospitals from their Medicare cost reports (CMS, 2023); FTE marks full-time equivalent staff. Not listed: many offices and banks, which need not report to OSHA; military bases, whose staff OPM withholds; and, in about half the states, city and county governments.
Natural hazards
- AvalanchesVery high
- WildfireRelatively high
- LandslidesRelatively moderate
- Winter weatherRelatively moderate
FEMA’s National Risk Index (December 2025) rates the risk each natural hazard poses to the people, buildings and farms in Alta’s census tracts, against the rest of the country; all of them together, very high. It is meant for planning, not a substitute for a local risk assessment or a flood map: FEMA’s index.
From the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 census and its American Community Survey (2020–2024 five-year estimates), and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. A survey, so each figure has a margin of error, and figures it is not sure of are left out. More on Salt Lake County and the Salt Lake City, UT metro.
Alta home values
Zillow measures a city over its municipal boundary. Against the state and national figures, mid-tier homes, smoothed and seasonally adjusted.
- Alta$2,242,494
- Utah$532,920
- United States$366,157
When this market ran hot
Each cell is that month's year-on-year home-value growth. Read left to right, top row is the latest year — the 2021–22 band is the boom.
Zip codes with a Alta address
A different geography, not a breakdown. The figure above covers the municipality; these zips cover everywhere the Post Office calls Alta — often including townships beyond the city limits. Both come straight from Zillow, and they are not expected to average out.
Zillow publishes no zip-level series with this city on the address.