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The 10 Hottest Housing Markets in 2024, According to Zillow Predictions
By Mary Ellen Cagnassola MONEY RESEARCH COLLECTIVE
It’ll be a big year for the Midwest, the Great Lakes region and the South.
What do the Midwest, the Great Lakes region and the South have in common?
They’re all home to cities that a new real estate analysis predicts will have the hottest housing markets of 2024. As homebuyers enter another year of affordability challenges, Zillow expects the 10 metropolitan areas in its ranking to attract activity for their stable local economies and home values, among other factors.
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Low inventory, record-breaking home prices and elevated mortgage rates have sidelined many homebuyers over the last few years. They’re expected to finally cool in 2024 — and prices could even see significant slowdowns in some fast-growing markets — but Zillow says these challenges probably won’t disappear entirely.
Naturally, this year’s homebuyers are going to flock to places where hurdles that have thwarted many before aren’t as prevalent. Most of the metros that made the ranking are located in the Midwest, Great Lakes and South, with Providence, Rhode Island, being the only East-Coast outlier.
The cities on Zillow’s list offer strong local job markets, and growth in home values is expected to be relatively stable. Buffalo, New York, tops the list not only for the expected steadiness of its home prices but also for its recent increases in the number of new jobs relative to the number of approved new home construction projects.
Still, part of what will make markets in the cities listed so hot is an outsize demand relative to the number of homes for sale. Cincinnati ranks second thanks to the lickety-split speed of its home sales last year: Zillow says that for-sale homes there went pending in a median of five to six days for most of 2023.
10 hottest markets of 2024
Zillow’s analysis is based on forecasted home value growth, recent housing market activity and projected labor market changes, home construction activity and existing homeownership.
The following cities are expected to have the hottest housing markets this year:
- Buffalo, New York
- Cincinnati, Ohio
- Columbus, Ohio
- Indianapolis, Indiana
- Providence, Rhode Island
- Atlanta, Georgia (named Money’s Best Place to Live for 2022-2023)
- Charlotte, North Carolina
- Cleveland, Ohio
- Orlando, Florida
- Tampa, Florida
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Housing Market Forecast: 4 Expert Predictions for 2024
Here’s How Far Home Prices and Mortgage Rates Could Drop in 2024
Mary Ellen (M.E.) Cagnassola joined Money as a reporter in 2022 following several years covering local communities in her home state of New Jersey and U.S. news for national brands, including Newsweek and People. Since receiving a B.A. in English and journalism and media studies from Rutgers University in 2017, M.E. has written about pretty much everything under the sun. As the versatile lead reporter for TAPinto Newark from 2019 to 2021, she won awards from the Center for Cooperative Media and the Society of Professional Journalists-New Jersey for her coverage of COVID-19, domestic violence, homelessness, eviction, police brutality, city government and more. She served on the board of the Society of Professional Journalists-New Jersey from 2021 to 2023. Her time at Money has afforded her newfound experience reporting primarily on Social Security policy, retirement, housing, lifestyle and employment. Influenced by her origins in community journalism, M.E.'s consumer finance coverage is informed by her dedication to service and equity. Some of her favorite topics that she has covered so far include the financial toll of caring for aging parents, sales taxes on diapers and period products, the booming personal loan industry and the customer service crisis at the Social Security Administration. Sometimes, M.E. makes TikTok videos for Money with her cat and Money’s in-house acting talent, Willow, from their home New York City.