Live Payson listings, filtered
Homes with an ADU or casita in Payson.
Payson listings with an accessory dwelling unit, whether that is a 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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- Payson, UT
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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 basement apartment, a detached casita, or an attached mother-in-law suite. New Payson listings appear here as they list, and sold homes drop off. The read on what makes one legal is just below.
Buying here
Sort permitted from finished before you tour.
A second kitchen, a private entrance, or a detached structure do not make an accessory dwelling legal on their own, so the useful question is whether the unit is permitted with Payson City and has proper egress, not just whether it exists. Tell me what setup you need and I will have the Payson-area partner agent I work with pull the permit history on any home you flag.
Selling here
Own a Payson home with a documented accessory dwelling?
Buyers on this page want a basement apartment, an attached suite, or a detached casita with the paperwork to back it up, permitted, with real egress. List it with the Payson-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 Payson.
An accessory dwelling is a property feature, not a promise. On a Payson 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. The search shows up across Utah Valley for two honest reasons, multigenerational living under one roof and a rentable suite where the unit is legal, and both turn on the same homework, which is whether the space is actually permitted.
Payson is good ground for this search, and the form it takes here is mostly the basement apartment. Utah Valley sits at elevation and the frost line is deep, so foundations go down and basements are the norm, common across both the historic stock and the new builds. The old pioneer grid around Main Street and Utah Avenue, with its early-1900s and mid-century homes on mature blocks, carries a deep stock of finished basements that already double the living space. Adding a second kitchen and a private entrance to that kind of full basement is exactly the conversion these listings describe. An attached mother-in-law suite turns up in the larger two-story floor plans filling the west side toward I-15, and on the sloped bench and walkout lots toward the south side near Gladstan Golf Course, a lower level can open to grade with full windows and a real door. A fully detached casita is the rarest shape here, since it takes a lot with room for a second structure, so the acreage and rural-edge parcels on the west field are the natural place to find one, and it is a find rather than an expectation.
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 detached structure 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 older 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. The two questions that decide everything are whether the unit is permitted with Payson City and whether it has its own legal egress, meaning a code-sized window well or door out of every sleeping room below grade. What an accessory dwelling is allowed to be on a given property depends on that parcel's zoning, so the answer is property-specific, not citywide.
Treat any income angle with the same caution. I will not quote you a rent number or a payment number on a page like this, because what a unit could earn depends on its legal status, the specific space, and rules that change, and a non-conforming unit cannot be counted on at all. What I can do is point you at the right stock. If a true separate suite is the goal, the older downtown ramblers are the natural hunting ground, so the single-story page and the no-HOA page are useful next stops, and the bigger two-story floor plans on the two-story page sometimes carry the deepest lower levels. If you only want the extra square footage and not a second kitchen, the homes with a basement page is the wider search, a different intent than this one. Earlier in the process than show me listings? Start with the Payson 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 Payson most of these are basement apartments, since full basements are the norm across the historic grid stock. Attached mother-in-law suites turn up in the bigger two-story west-side plans, and a detached casita is rare, so read the listing for where the space actually sits.
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Second kitchen: a full or kitchenette setup is the core marker. A finished basement or a spare suite with no kitchen is just extra space, not a separate unit, so read the listing for the actual 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 makes the space usable on its own rather than a through-the-house extension. On a sloped south-side lot it is sometimes a true grade-level walkout.
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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: Payson runs one city utility account covering power, water, sewer and irrigation, so a truly separate meter is less common here. Some units split HVAC instead. Note what is actually separate, but do not read it as proof of a permit.
The local map
Where the accessory units actually are.
Homes with a second living space turn up across Payson, but the forms concentrate in a few patterns, and the basement apartment is by far the dominant one. Here is where to look, and the due-diligence note attached to each.
The historic downtown grid
The original pioneer plat around Main Street and Utah Avenue holds early-1900s and mid-century homes on mature, tree-lined blocks, sitting over the deepest stock of finished basements in town. This is the most likely place to find a real separate suite, and also the most likely place to find one finished without a permit, so it is the area where verification matters most.
The mid-century rings near the old grid
Just out from downtown, the mid-century homes carry full basements that lent themselves to a downstairs build-out with its own grade-level door. The layout often puts a private entrance a half-flight down, which is why so many conversions started here. Confirm the egress windows on the bedrooms below.
The west side toward I-15
The 2010s and 2020s subdivisions filling in between the old grid and the freeway have younger systems and plenty of full basements, some finished as separate living space, and the bigger two-story plans among them can carry an attached mother-in-law suite too. A newer build is more likely to have been finished with permits, but you still verify it and confirm what the parcel's zoning allows.
Larger new-build floor plans
Payson's wide new-construction envelope runs to large single-family homes, and the bigger two-story plans often have the deepest and tallest basements, which makes a comfortable second kitchen and a real bedroom downstairs more workable than in a low older basement, or room for an attached suite on the main level.
Bench and walkout lots on the south side
On the south and southeast foothill streets where the ground rises toward Gladstan Golf Course, a sloped lot can let the lower level open to grade with full windows and a real door. That is the ideal setup for a separate suite that lives like its own floor rather than a dark basement. These are less common but worth watching for.
Acreage and rural-edge parcels
On the larger west-field and rural-fringe lots, there is sometimes room for a fully detached casita alongside the main house, the rarest form of accessory dwelling in Payson, along with the space to spread out generally. Zoning varies parcel by parcel out here, so the legality question is the same one, just with more land attached. The acreage page covers that ground.
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 Payson City. A second kitchen and a side door do not make a unit legal on their own.
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.
Attached, detached, or below grade: note which form you are actually looking at, since a basement apartment, an attached suite, and a detached casita each carry their own access. Check whether the kitchen, HVAC, and any meter are genuinely separate, and whether the wiring and gas work were done to code and inspected. Payson bills one city utility account, so a split meter is the exception, not the rule.
Ceiling height and light: an older basement can be low. Stand in it. Tall, daylight, or walkout lower levels live very differently from a short, fully below-grade basement.
Age of the bones: on any historic-grid or mid-century home, date the roof, furnace, electrical panel, and sewer lateral, and confirm the secondary pressurized irrigation connection and the rest of the city utility account.
Want a real accessory dwelling without the guesswork?
Tell me your budget, the part of Payson you like, whether you want a basement apartment, an attached 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 Payson-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 basements with a door.
Selling a Payson home with a basement apartment, a casita, or an attached accessory suite? The buyers reading this page want exactly that. List it with the Payson-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 Payson the most common form by far is a 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, 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 Payson 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 Payson City to be treated as a separate dwelling, what is allowed depends on the parcel's zoning, and many existing basement apartments and converted suites in older homes were finished over the years without permits or were built before today's rules, so they are 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 in the historic downtown grid around Main Street and Utah Avenue, where the early-1900s and mid-century homes sit over the city's deepest stock of finished basements and carry most of the basement apartments. Attached suites turn up in the larger two-story floor plans on the west side toward I-15, and on the sloped bench and walkout lots on the south side toward Gladstan Golf Course a lower level can live like its own floor. A fully detached casita is the rarest form here, since it takes a lot with room for a second structure, so the acreage and rural-edge parcels are the natural place to look for one. 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. A permitted, conforming accessory dwelling is a different thing from a non-conforming space that happens to have a kitchen, the rules around accessory dwellings and rentals can change, and what is allowed depends on the parcel's zoning, so this is a question to confirm with Payson 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 a piece of what makes a basement bedroom or apartment count as legal living space. It matters most on the basement units 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 town, and whether you need a fully permitted suite or are open to an existing space to verify, and I will connect you with a Payson-area partner agent and flag matching listings as they go live. Pair that with a conversation about financing so you can move when the right separate-suite home lists, since these are a narrow slice and they do not sit long.