Living in Woods Cross, Utah: An Honest Guide from a Local Realtor

Woods Cross is easy to drive past. It is 3.84 square miles wedged between West Bountiful, Bountiful and North Salt Lake, and if all you know of it is the I-15 exit and the refinery stacks, you would never guess people fight over houses here.

They do. And the reason is simple: Woods Cross is one of the last places on the south end of Davis County where you can still buy a real house on a real lot, walk to a park, and be on a train to downtown Salt Lake in eleven minutes.

I'm Julie Burningham, a Realtor with Equity Real Estate. I've lived in Davis County since 2001, raised four kids through Davis School District, and I sell homes across south Davis County. This is the version of Woods Cross I'd give you over coffee — including the parts that are not in the brochure.

The short version

Woods Cross was settled in 1865 and incorporated in 1935, and it takes its name from Daniel Wood, an early settler whose land sat where the roads crossed. The 2020 census counted 11,410 residents. It is small enough that people recognize each other at Hogan Park and big enough to have its own high school, its own police department, and its own FrontRunner stop.

What homes cost in Woods Cross

As of July 31, 2026, Zillow's home value index puts the typical Woods Cross home at $531,290, up about 2% over the past year. That's the Zillow index — a modeled figure for the whole city, not a sale price — and it's the most stable public number I've found for a city this small.

Here's the honest caveat, and it matters: Woods Cross is too small for monthly medians to mean much. In a city that might close a couple dozen homes in a month, three big sales on the west side can swing the "median sale price" by six figures. I have seen public sources report year-over-year jumps of 30% here that were entirely an artifact of which houses happened to close. If you see a dramatic number for Woods Cross, ask how many sales it's based on before you make a decision on it.

What you're actually buying. Davis County assessor records list a build year for 3,233 Woods Cross parcels, and they tell the real story of this city's housing:

• Half the housing stock was built before 1998.
• A quarter of it predates 1978, and about one in ten homes was built before 1965.
• A quarter was built after 2003.

In plain terms: Woods Cross is mostly a 1970s–early 2000s city. Brick ramblers and split-levels on generous lots make up the bulk of it, with pockets of newer construction filled in around the edges. It is not a new-build suburb, and if you want a 2020s house here you'll be shopping a handful of specific subdivisions, not the whole city.

Neighborhoods in Woods Cross, by name

Woods Cross doesn't really have "neighborhoods" in the big-name sense. It has platted subdivisions, and locals use those names. The ones that come up most:

Newer construction

• The Audrey — a current Cole West community at 850 South 1100 West: 45 single-family homes, roughly 1,848 to 2,411 square feet, starting around $590,000 as of this writing. This is where to look if you want brand-new in Woods Cross specifically.
• Shamrock Village — a Lennar development built out in two product lines, Cottages and Estates. The newest inventory in town for several years running.
• Valentine Estates — built out in phases and one of the more actively traded names in the city.

Established

• Argyle Acres — west side, in the 1890–2280 West blocks around 2185 South.
• Mountain View Estates — a west-side pocket around the 800 West / 2280 South area, with a mix of single-family homes, townhomes and rentals.
• Farm Meadows — established single-family housing; the city has a designated Farm Meadows reinvestment area, so the name shows up in city documents as well as listings.
• Cahoon Acres — a smaller established subdivision, carrying one of the old south-Davis family names.
• Village Green and Mills Park — two more established pockets that listing sites treat as their own neighborhoods.

Worth knowing if you're renting or investing: Meadow Crossing comes up in Woods Cross searches, but it's an apartment community rather than a subdivision — useful if you're looking for a rental or a rental comp, not if you're looking for a house to buy.

Schools

This is the single most misunderstood thing about Woods Cross, so it gets its own article: Best Schools in Woods Cross, Utah: A Parent's Guide.

The short version: Woods Cross is served by Davis School District, elementary runs K–6, junior high is 7–9, and high school is only 10–12. Two elementary schools sit in the city — Woods Cross Elementary and Odyssey Elementary — and no junior high does, so every Woods Cross seventh grader goes into Bountiful. And roughly one in seven Woods Cross homes, all on the far west side, is zoned to Bountiful High School, not Woods Cross High. Legacy Preparatory Academy, a tuition-free K–9 public charter, is also here in town.

If schools matter to your search at all, read that article before you tour anything.

The commute

This is Woods Cross's genuine competitive advantage, and it's why people put up with the freight noise.

• FrontRunner. The Woods Cross station sits at 750 South 800 West with two free park-and-ride lots and roughly 230 spaces. Scheduled travel time to Salt Lake Central is about 11 minutes. Not 11 minutes plus parking downtown — 11 minutes, and then you walk. It opened in 2008 and is the reason a Woods Cross house competes with houses much closer in.
• I-15 is right there, which is both the selling point and the drawback.
• Legacy Parkway runs along the west edge of the city and is the pressure valve when I-15 backs up. It has a truck ban and a lower speed limit, so it's a calmer drive north to Farmington.
• US-89 on the east bench is the third option north.
• Downtown Salt Lake City is about 10 miles by road; Salt Lake City International is a straightforward run down I-215.

Check the current FrontRunner schedule before you count on a specific train — UTA adjusts service, and the frequency matters more than the travel time.

Cost of living beyond the mortgage

Property tax. Utah gives a 45% primary residential exemption, so if Woods Cross is your primary home you're taxed on 55% of market value, not the whole thing. Up to one acre of land is included. It's a meaningful difference and it catches out-of-state buyers who are budgeting from their old state's math. Second homes and most rentals don't get it.

The RAP tax. Woods Cross has levied a Recreation, Arts & Parks sales tax since 2009, and residents voted on reauthorizing it in 2025. It's a fraction of a cent on retail purchases, and it's what has paid for the park and trail improvements you'll see around town. If you like that the parks look maintained, that's where it comes from.

Utilities and services run through the city — water, sewer, storm water, garbage and recycling — and the city publishes its fee schedule, which is worth a look before you close rather than after.

Parks, trails and getting outside

Named places, because "great parks" tells you nothing:

In the city:

• Hogan Park, over on 1500 South, is the one most residents mean when they say "the park."
• Mills Park has tennis courts and is the city's most-reserved pavilion location.
• Mountain View Park rounds out the three city sites with reservable pavilions.

The city also runs youth sports leagues, pickleball and tennis, and community events through its Parks & Recreation department, and you reserve pavilions through the city's online system rather than by phone.

Minutes away:

• The Legacy Parkway Trail is the big one. About 13.2 miles of paved trail, among the longest continuous paved trails in northern Utah, running from near the Farmington FrontRunner station south to the I-215/Legacy interchange in North Salt Lake — straight along the west side of Woods Cross. Flat, wide, and genuinely usable for commuting by bike, not just weekend rides.
• Legacy Nature Preserve sits out on the west flats toward the Great Salt Lake, with trail access for walking and birding.
• Mueller Park Trail, up the canyon east of Bountiful, is the local classic: about 7 miles round trip with 900 feet of gain to Elephant Rock, where there's a bench pointed at the sunset over the Great Salt Lake. Trailhead is up 1800 South from Orchard Drive. Hikers, trail runners, mountain bikers, dogs and horses all share it.
• Bountiful Ridge Golf Course at 2430 South Bountiful Boulevard, on the bench with the valley below it.
• South Davis Recreation Center, 550 North 200 West in Bountiful — indoor and outdoor pools, an ice rink, fitness center, weight room and racquetball. This is the indoor winter answer for families here.

The honest downsides

I'd rather you hear these from me than discover them in month two.

The refinery. HF Sinclair operates a refinery in Woods Cross. It is a significant local employer and it is also a refinery — there are days with an odor, and it's visible from much of the west side. Some residents genuinely never think about it; others would not buy west of the tracks because of it. Drive the specific street you're considering, more than once, at different times of day. That's not me hedging — it's that people's tolerance for this varies enormously and you need to know yours.

The industrial west side. Beyond the refinery, west Woods Cross carries warehousing, rail and light industry. It's why land was affordable enough to build newer homes there, and it's why those homes price differently than the same house on the east side.

Freeway and rail noise. I-15 and the rail corridor run the length of the city. Some streets you don't notice it; some you do.

Winter inversion. This is a Wasatch Front reality, not a Woods Cross one, but the valley floor sits in it. Homes on the Bountiful bench sit above it more often — which is part of what you're paying for when you go east and up.

Small-city services. Woods Cross is a city of about 11,000. That means responsive local government and a police department that knows the neighborhoods. It also means the recreation center, the hospital and most of the shopping are in Bountiful.

Who Woods Cross is right for

It fits people who want a Davis County address and a Salt Lake commute without paying Bountiful bench prices. It fits families who like that the schools, the park and the train are all within a couple of miles. It fits anyone who would rather have a 1990s house with a yard than a newer house with none.

It's a harder fit if you want a walkable town center, if the refinery is going to sit in the back of your mind, or if you specifically want new construction and aren't willing to be limited to a couple of subdivisions.

If you're thinking about Woods Cross

The thing I'd tell you before anything else: in a city this small, the differences between streets are bigger than the differences between price points. Which school your address feeds, whether you're east or west of the tracks, how close you are to the freeway — those change what your life here looks like far more than an extra 200 square feet does.

That's the part I can help with. I work both sides — listing homes for sellers and representing buyers — and I know these streets well enough to tell you plainly which ones will suit you and which ones won't. If you're selling in Woods Cross, I'll price it against what's actually comparable rather than a citywide median that doesn't describe your block.

Reach out any time, even if you're months out. I'd rather help you early than watch you make an expensive assumption.

Julie Burningham · Equity Real Estate · Woods Cross and south Davis County