Live Highland listings, filtered
Homes with an ADU or casita in Highland.
Highland listings with an accessory dwelling unit, whether that is a walkout basement apartment, a detached casita, or an attached mother-in-law suite, fed straight from the MLS and sorted newest first, with a clear read on what makes one legal here and what to verify before you write an offer.
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Want it narrower? Tell me your exact spec.
Newest first
The newest ADU and casita listings.
Fed straight from the local MLS and filtered to homes that note an accessory dwelling unit, whether that is a walkout basement apartment, a detached casita, or an attached mother-in-law suite. New Highland listings appear here as they list, and sold homes drop off. The read on what makes one legal is just below.
Buying here
Ask whether it's permitted, not just built.
A second kitchen and a side door do not by themselves make a legal accessory unit, so the real homework is confirming the permit history and the parcel's zoning with Highland City. Tell me what layout you need, a walkout suite, an attached wing, or a detached casita, and I will have the Highland-area partner agent I work with pull that history before you tour.
Selling here
Own a Highland home with a documented accessory space?
Buyers reading this page want a separate suite with the paperwork to back it up, a narrow search in a city like Highland. List it with the Highland-area partner agent I connect you with and it goes in front of exactly that search.
Listing information comes from the local MLS and is deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
The local read
What an accessory dwelling really means in Highland.
An accessory dwelling is a property feature, not a promise. On a Highland listing it means a secondary living space that can function on its own: a second kitchen, its own bathroom, a separate exterior entrance, and sometimes a separate utility meter. The words move around. A basement apartment is a lower level built out that way, a casita is usually a detached unit set apart from the house, and a mother-in-law suite is usually an attached apartment on the main or upper floor. Read this as a floor plan, not a business plan. Highland is a large-lot bench city of custom and estate homes that runs roughly 92 percent owner-occupied, so the honest frame for this search is a multigenerational layout or a self-contained guest suite under one roof, the kind of separate-quarters arrangement a big home on a half-acre-to-acre lot has room for.
Highland is good ground for these layouts for a structural reason. The Wasatch Front frost line is deep, so foundations go down and basements are the regional norm, and on the sloped east-bench and foothill lots toward the mouth of American Fork Canyon a lower level can open to grade as a walkout, with full windows and its own door. That is the natural setup for a separate downstairs suite that lives like its own floor rather than a dark basement. The large detached stock on the established bench streets, the kind of acre-class homes you will also see on the acreage page, is exactly where a full basement has the size to carry a real second kitchen and a comfortable bedroom below, and where a big enough lot even has room for a detached casita set apart from the house.
Here is the part that matters more than the photos. A finished basement is not the same as a legal apartment, and neither is a converted room over the garage or a guest building out back. A second kitchen and an outside door do not make a unit conforming on their own, and a great many existing accessory units in Utah housing were finished over the years without permits or were built before today's rules. That is not a reason to walk away, but it is the reason to verify rather than assume. What is allowed depends on the parcel's zoning, and Highland's three residential zones live differently, so the two questions that decide everything are whether the unit is permitted with Highland City and whether it has its own legal egress, meaning a code-sized window well or door out of every sleeping room below grade.
I will not put a rent number or a payment number on a page like this. What a separate suite could ever do depends entirely on its legal status, the specific space, and city rules that change, and a non-conforming unit cannot be counted on at all, so a projection here would be a guess dressed up as a fact. What I can do is point you at the right stock. The separate-quarters layout shows up most often on the larger detached homes, so the single-story page and the bigger floor plans on the two-story page are useful next stops, and the established big-lot parcels on the no-HOA page often have the room a separate entrance wants. If you only want the extra square footage and not a second kitchen, the all-listings page is the wider search. Earlier in the process than show me listings? Start with the Highland guide, and when a home below reads right, that is the moment to reach out.
What counts as an accessory dwelling
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The form it takes: in Highland most of these are walkout basement apartments, since the bench lots and deep frost line make a lower level the natural spot. Attached mother-in-law suites turn up in the larger homes, and a detached casita is rare but the big lots have room for one, so read the listing for where the space actually sits.
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Second kitchen: a full kitchen or kitchenette downstairs is the core marker. A finished basement with no kitchen is just finished space, not a separate unit, so read the listing for the actual lower-level layout.
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Separate entrance: the second front door of the page title. A private exterior entry, often a walk-down or a side door, is what lets the lower level work as its own space rather than a through-the-house extension. On a walkout lot it can be a full grade-level door.
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Separate egress: every sleeping room below grade needs a code-sized window well or a door to the outside. This is a safety item and a legality item at once, and it is the first thing to confirm in person.
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Separate utilities: some units have their own gas or electric meter, or at least split HVAC. It is a convenience, not proof of legality, so note it but do not read it as a permit.
The local map
Where the accessory units actually are.
Homes with a second living space turn up across Highland, but the forms concentrate in a few patterns, and the walkout basement apartment is by far the dominant one. Here is where to look, and the due-diligence note attached to each.
The east bench and canyon side
Hidden Oaks, Dry Creek Highland, and Mercer Hollow run the established large-lot streets toward the mouth of American Fork Canyon, where the foothill slope means a lower level can open as a walkout with its own grade-level door. That is the natural footprint for a separate suite. These streets sit inside the city's fireworks-restricted wildland-edge zone, so check the slope, drainage, and the current restriction map too.
Walkout and daylight lots
Anywhere the bench falls away, a lower level can open to grade with full windows and a real door, which is the ideal setup for a separate downstairs suite that lives like its own floor. The east-bench foothill streets carry the most of these, but a sloped lot anywhere in the city can deliver one. Confirm the egress windows on every bedroom below.
The larger detached estate streets
The acre-class and half-acre homes across the bench have the basement size a comfortable second kitchen and a real bedroom downstairs actually need, which a low older basement may not. The bigger the home and the lot, the more room the separate-quarters layout has to work without feeling like a converted storage level, and a lot this size is also the rare place a detached casita has room to sit apart from the house.
Around the Alpine Country Club
The estate streets surrounding the private club at the base of the canyon are larger custom homes, and a custom build is the most likely place to find a downstairs suite, an attached mother-in-law wing, or even a detached casita that was designed in rather than retrofitted. Designed-in is not the same as permitted, so still confirm the unit's status with the city.
The west bench: View Pointe and Beacon Hills
The big-lot streets on the west side, where Beacon Hill Park anchors one end and valley views open the other, mix decades of detached homes and the room a separate entrance wants. This is also where the city's irrigation-meter rollout started, so price the secondary-water line item alongside any second living space.
Highland Town Center
The Crestview Ridge and Crestview Point townhomes around 11000 North are the city's attached and entry product, and a townhome rarely carries a separate basement suite, so this is the least likely spot for this search. If a flexible separate-living layout is the goal, the detached bench streets above are the place to look, not the Town Center node.
Before you tour: what to actually check
Is it permitted: ask the listing agent for the permit history and confirm the unit's status and the parcel's zoning with Highland City. A second kitchen and a side door do not make a unit legal on their own, and what is allowed depends on the zone.
Egress on every bedroom: each sleeping room below grade needs a code-sized egress window and well, or a door to the outside. Look at the actual window wells, not just the listing photos.
Conforming vs. existing: many older accessory units are non-conforming, finished before today's rules or without permits. Understand exactly what you are buying and what can and cannot be relied on.
Separate systems: check whether the kitchen, HVAC, and any meter are genuinely separate, and whether the wiring and gas work for the second kitchen were done to code and inspected.
The walkout and the slope: a walkout lower level lives far better as a suite than a fully below-grade basement. On an east-bench or foothill lot, look at how the grade falls, the drainage, and whether the lower entrance is a true grade-level door.
Water, snow, and the rest: Highland bills culinary water separately from seasonal pressurized irrigation, so two living spaces can mean a real landscape and water budget, and bench snow makes the driveway a chore. Date the roof, furnace, and electrical panel on any older home.
Want a real accessory dwelling without the guesswork?
Tell me your budget, the part of Highland you like, whether you want a walkout basement apartment, an attached mother-in-law suite, or a detached casita, and whether you need a fully permitted, conforming unit or are open to an existing space you would verify and possibly bring up to code. I will connect you with a trusted Highland-area partner agent for the on-the-ground work and stay on the file for the homework and the financing, with straight answers about which spaces are legal units and which are just finished walkout basements with a door.
Selling a Highland home with a basement apartment, a casita, or an attached accessory suite? The buyers reading this page want exactly that. List it with the Highland-area partner agent I connect you with, and your home gets featured across MovingUtah, on the pages they are already reading.
Quick answers
ADU and casita shopping, answered.
It is a secondary living space that can function on its own, and the listings use several words for it. In Highland the most common form is a walkout basement apartment, a lower level built out with a second kitchen, its own bathroom, and a separate exterior entrance. A casita usually means a detached unit set apart from the main house, which the large half-acre-to-acre lots here have the room for, and a mother-in-law suite usually means an attached accessory apartment on the main or upper level. All of them are property features describing the space, nothing more. The big thing to know is that a second kitchen and an outside door do not make a unit legal on their own, so the real work is confirming whether it is permitted and conforming with Highland City and what the specific parcel's zoning allows.
Some are and some are not, which is exactly why you verify rather than assume. An accessory dwelling has to be permitted with Highland City to be treated as a separate dwelling, what is allowed depends on the parcel's zoning, and Highland's three residential zones live differently, so many existing basement apartments and converted suites were finished over the years without permits or were built before today's rules, making them non-conforming. That is not a dealbreaker by itself, but you need to know which one you are buying. Confirm the zoning, the permit history, the unit's status, and the egress independently before you rely on it, and I will help line up those checks.
Most often on the larger detached bench homes, and especially on the sloped east-bench and canyon-side streets like Hidden Oaks, Dry Creek Highland, and Mercer Hollow, where a lower level can open to grade as a walkout basement apartment with its own door. Attached mother-in-law suites turn up in the larger two-story homes, and a detached casita is the rarest form, though the big half-acre-to-acre lots around the Alpine Country Club and the west-bench streets near View Pointe and Beacon Hills have the room for one. The Town Center townhomes rarely carry any of these. The live listings above are the honest count on any given week.
Only where the unit is legal, and that is the whole point of the verification. Highland runs roughly 92 percent owner-occupied, so an ADU, casita, or basement apartment here reads more as a multigenerational or guest-suite layout than as a rental market, and whether any given unit can be rented depends on its legal status and city rules that can change. This is a question to confirm with Highland City for the specific property, not to assume from the listing. I will not put a rent figure on a page like this, because it depends entirely on the unit's legal status and the specifics, but I can connect you with a local agent who will get you straight answers on what the city allows.
Egress is a legal, code-sized way out of every below-grade sleeping room, usually an egress window with a window well sized for a person to climb out, or a door to the outside. It is both a safety requirement and part of what makes a basement bedroom or apartment count as legal living space. It matters most on the walkout basement apartments that make up most of this search, and it is the first thing to confirm in person, because a room marketed as a bedroom downstairs is not really one without it. We check the actual window wells, not just the photos.
Tell me the budget, the part of Highland, and whether you need a fully permitted suite or are open to an existing layout to verify, and I will connect you with a Highland-area partner agent and flag matching listings as they go live. Because the city is heavily owner-occupied and these are a narrow slice, pairing that with a conversation about your numbers early means you can move when the right separate-quarters home lists.