As a Mormon, I've never encountered any such pressure to "appear financially successful." This is a nonsense statement made from someone who doesn't know much of anything about the LDS Church. In fact, the messaging from the church leadership is just the opposite--live within your means and stay out of debt. This is a consistent, constant message. I can promise you the claim that we're pressured to "look successful" is laughably false and the polar opposite from the truth.
On the other hand I would agree that people who marry young and think they need a house beyond their means is likely a cause of mortgage problems in Utah. People in such a situation should rent until they're able to afford a home of their own. But there's nothing in anything the church teaches that should make them think they need to own a home. That's their own internal misjudgment.
But let's face it, the problem of people living outside their ability to support it is a national problem, not just a Mormon problem, and at the crux of the national foreclosure crisis. Other states like California, Arizona, Nevada, Michigan and Florida have had much more of a foreclosure problem then Utah. I think the need to connect this issue to religious practice is gratuitous. There's really little connection between the two. And if one really wanted to build a silly argument upon a silly arugment you could say that not being a Mormon was a bigger cause of foreclosure than being once since the states with the highest foreclosures are not predominantly Mormon--just like within Utah non-Mormons are those with the highest foreclosure rates. But again, this is an absurdity just like the initial premise.
It's simple. Do the math: You can't be 56% of the pop without contributing to a bankruptcy rate almost twice the natl avg state-wise. (IOW, it's not simply 44% of Utah's non-Mormon population operating in severely lopsided ways as foreclosure-happy folks).
That's nearly double the national rate and not far from No. 4 Florida's rate of 1 in 187.
That's because 60% of the state claim to be MORMON.
Do you think the OTHER 40% are SO bad that THEY would drag the state to the #2 spot?
http://www.statemaster.com/state/UT-utah