The state of the U.S. housing market has been dimmed by high mortgage rates and steep home prices, but certain parts of the country are still offering too much value for buyers to resist.
Realtor.com released its “Hottest ZIP Codes of 2023” report earlier this week, naming the top 10 cities and towns in the country where home buyers are snapping up properties despite the cost of a mortgage.
The list looks as follows, with the median listing price, median days on the market and ZIP codes in parentheses. The list also used market demand data based on unique viewers of properties on Realtor.com.
1. Gahanna, Ohio ($351,000/13 days/43230)
2. Southington, Connecticut ($368,000/18 days/06489)
3. Ridgewood, New Jersey ($1,184,000/18 days/07450)
4. Andover, Massachusetts (992,000/19 days/01810)
5. Nazareth, Pennsylvania ($429,000/18 days/18064)
6. Highland, Indiana ($268,000/19 days/46322)
7. Trenton, Michigan ($238,000/20 days/48183)
8. Norwalk, Connecticut ($596,000/23 days/06851)
9. Pittsford, New York ($595,000/21 days/14534)
10. Ballwin, Missouri ($3530,000/21 days/63021)
One of the key takeaways from this year’s report is that the top ten ZIP codes have homes that tend to be bigger, on average, than both the housing stock in the U.S. at-large and in their surrounding metro areas. Households in Ridgewood, Andover and Pittsford all had homes were as much as 19% larger than the U.S. average of 2.5 people per home. The more affordable markets on the list also tended to have larger households than the surrounding metros in 7 of the top 10 ZIP codes.
Home inventory in these 10 areas declined in June compared to the national average inventory in all other ZIP codes, which increased by 7.1%. On average, the 10 hottest ZIP codes saw inventory fall 22.4% in June.
Also notable from the report is that the top 10 ZIP codes have an average home ownership rate of 76.7%, compared to the national average of 66%. Only Gahanna and Norwalk were below the national average.
Based on property views at Realtor.com, most of the market demand in the top 10 ZIP codes appears to be coming from people who live in surrounding metros and want to make local moves. Ridgewood and Highland derived more than 80% of their listing views from within their metro areas in New York City and Chicago, respectively. Gahanna, which is in the Columbus metro area in Chicago, had the highest rate out-of-metro viewers, with 13% of its second quarter views coming from New York City.
Photo credit Sieuwert Otterloo/Unsplash.com
