The Salt Lake City-to-Provo decision has a split cost profile: the destination shows higher asking rent but a lower home-value benchmark. IRS SOI migration for 2022-2023 recorded 5,957 tax-return households moving along this corridor. Those returns represented 19.55% of Salt Lake City’s outbound returns and 31.62% of Provo’s inbound returns. IRS flow measures tax-return households; it does not identify renters, every mover or future demand. It is evidence of an observed taxpayer corridor, not a forecast of Provo leasing activity.
Zillow ZORI as of 2026-06-30 placed Salt Lake City asking rent at $1,638 and Provo at $1,847. The measured destination difference was $209 per month, or $2,508 annually. Zillow’s same-date ZHVI placed the metro Zillow home-value benchmark at $567,346 in Salt Lake City and $548,061 in Provo. HUD’s FY2026 Fair Market Rent points in the opposite direction from ZORI, with a lower Provo standard. Fair Market Rent is a HUD program standard, not a Zillow market-rent observation.
For rental-property screening, Provo’s same-date simple gross-yield measure was 4.05%, compared with 3.46% in Salt Lake City. That is a directional screen rather than an expected return: it excludes operating expenses, financing, taxes, insurance, maintenance, concessions and property-specific rent. The move therefore exchanges a higher observed asking-rent benchmark for a lower metro home-value benchmark, while household affordability and asset performance remain unit-specific. The next underwriting question is whether the target property’s signed or supportable rent, recurring expenses and insurance quote preserve that screening contrast without assuming IRS movers become tenants.