Draper vs Herriman, Utah

Home prices

The price gap between these two towns runs backward from what the mile marker would suggest. Draper's median sits at ~$784,800, against ~$590,700 in Herriman, even though Herriman is the bigger city by population these days. Household income runs the same direction, ~$129,000 in Draper against ~$123,000 in Herriman, so this isn't simply a story about income. Part of the gap is geography: Draper sits right at the mouth of the Point of the Mountain, a short hop from the Lehi tech corridor and its own rail line. Part of it is that Herriman built almost all of its housing stock after 2000, on open bench ground, which keeps the starting price down even as the city fills in fast.

Draper's most expensive address is also its most unusual. SunCrest, up on the Traverse ridge, is the one pocket of this city that actually sits in Utah County, and it prices like it, with big views and a special taxing district that plows the extra snow. Below that, the east bench streets feeding the Corner Canyon trailheads, Draper Heights and the gated Steeplechase among them, carry the trail-access premium without the ridge markup. Head west instead, toward the Jordan River Parkway, the FrontRunner station, and the older blocks near the TRAX terminus, and the price comes back to earth in the townhomes and smaller lots that make up Draper's starting price range. The neighborhoods section of the Draper guide maps the rest.

Herriman is younger, so its money runs by build date more than by direction. Rosecrest, the newer master plan climbing the central and upper bench, carries the trail-access and view premium along with the newest systems in any given house. The value end sits on the east and valley side, the city's older 2000s-era streets closest to Riverton, where Herriman under $600,000 shows the broadest mix of what's actually for sale. Either way you're buying a house built well after 2000; there's no old grid to hunt a bargain in here the way there is in an older Wasatch Front city.

For the same monthly payment, here's the trade in plain terms: Herriman gets you more house on a newer bench lot, and Draper gets you less house but the shortest commute to Lehi and a rail option Herriman doesn't have. Before you settle on either, the cost-of-living guide breaks the whole state down by region, and running either median through the affordability calculator tells you what that actually costs every month.

Taxes, town by town

Property tax starts from the same county average in both towns, with one Herriman wrinkle. Utah only taxes a primary residence on 55 percent of its market value, and with that exemption applied, the rate works out to ~0.55% effective in Draper and ~0.55% effective in Herriman, where a city safety enforcement levy adds to the bill. The purchase-price gap between these two towns dwarfs that extra levy, so it shouldn't be what tips your decision. Both the city and the school district reset their rate every year, so use these figures as a general guide and pull the current number for the specific parcel before you write an offer. The property tax guide walks through how the exemption and the certified rate combine to produce that bill.

Sales tax and state income tax won't be what decides this for you either. Utah charges the same flat income tax rate statewide, and Draper and Herriman land close enough together on sales tax that switching cities won't change what you pay at the register. If you want the current combined rate down to the decimal, Utah's sales tax guide tracks it by city.

What the extra money buys

What the higher Draper price buys is the commute and the newest infill left in this stretch of the valley. The old prison site at The Point is cleared and under construction, and new construction in Draper is scarce but real, mostly on the bench and toward SunCrest. Mountain-view homes in Draper cover the Wasatch and Traverse ridge views the bench and SunCrest carry, and luxury homes in Draper is where the Steeplechase and SunCrest estates show up.

The lower Herriman price buys room to spare and a house that's almost certainly newer than a comparable one in Draper. New construction in Herriman is common rather than rare, since most of the city has gone up in the last twenty years, and mountain-view homes in Herriman pick up the same Oquirrh bench views Rosecrest was built to capture. Start here if a bigger, newer house matters more to you than shaving minutes off the commute.

Elevation and seasons

This is the one section on this page where the two towns genuinely match. Draper sits at ~4,505 ft and Herriman at ~4,850 ft, close enough that the thermometer does not care. Summer highs run 90 to 95 °F in Draper and 90 to 95 °F in Herriman, the same range either way. Winter highs run 37 to 45 °F, lows in the 20s in Draper against 37 to 44 °F, lows in the teens and 20s in Herriman, close enough that the difference won't register on the ground.

A typical winter here brings snow on the valley floor that doesn't stick around long between storms, crisp cold mornings, and a haze that pools into the lowest ground once the air stops moving. Both towns have a ridge that sits above that haze some of the time: Draper's SunCrest tops out near 6,000 feet on the Traverse Ridge, and Herriman's upper bench climbs high enough to catch the same occasional clear air, though neither should be counted on for it every week. Summer is dry heat that breaks after dark in both towns, with the evening cooling off a little faster on the higher ground in each.

Water, air, and the map

Both towns draw on the same Wasatch snowpack that feeds the whole valley, so a light winter up the canyons matters to a tap down here no matter which side you buy on. The real difference is the ground itself. Herriman's western edge runs straight into the Oquirrh foothills and Camp Williams, the National Guard's training range, and a stray round from a training exercise there has already started a wildfire that burned into nearby subdivisions. Draper's foothills, by contrast, run into Corner Canyon, a trail network with no live training range attached. If you're buying on Herriman's foothill edge, ask about defensible space the same way you'd ask about anything else that matters street by street.

The land question here isn't about a desert reserve keeping either city from growing; it's about who owns the mountain on each side of the valley. Corner Canyon, above Draper, is mostly city property that Draper bought with a voter-approved bond and grooms for trail use. The Oquirrhs, above Herriman, belong mostly to the federal government, home to Camp Williams' training range as much as to any trailhead. Salt Lake County as a whole runs 21% federal, 73% private, and neither city controls how much of that ever opens up for anything else. A lot backing either range usually means a neighbor that will never build behind you, for very different reasons depending on which range it is. The public land guide explains what living next to protected or restricted ground actually involves.

School districts

The two towns split on schools where they split on almost nothing else. Canyons School District covers the Salt Lake County side of Draper, nearly all of the city, while Jordan School District covers Herriman outright. The city guides for Draper and Herriman show which schools a given address feeds. I do not rate schools, on this page or anywhere on the site. I name the district, link the guide, and leave the judgment to you and the district's own published data.

Colleges and universities

Neither town runs its own four year university, but both have landed a piece of higher education close to home in the last few years. Herriman's own campus, the Juniper Building, opened in August 2023 as a joint Salt Lake Community College and University of Utah site on Sentinel Ridge Boulevard, one of the first in the state built that way from day one. Draper's version sits a short hop north: Salt Lake Community College, Larry H. Miller Campus in Sandy, about 10 min north, plus the old eBay campus in Draper itself becoming a Canyons School District training center for the trades.

Hospitals and clinics

On hospitals the two towns are not equal, and it's worth knowing before you move. Draper has its own emergency room: Lone Peak Hospital (MountainStar Healthcare) in town; Alta View Hospital in Sandy about 10 min north. Herriman does not: No hospital in town; Intermountain Riverton Hospital (Intermountain Health) next door in Riverton, about 6 min. A short drive either way is not a hardship, but only one of these two towns can treat you without leaving the city limits.