California Dominates Hottest Markets List … Again!

In what might be charitably described as a monotonously predictable monthly announcement, the latest Realtor.com list of the nation’s hottest housing markets consists primarily of California metro areas.

Once again, San Francisco and Vallejo occupy the first and second slots in the top 20 list, with 10 out of 20 listings going to California locations. However, three new markets to break the top 10—Indiana’s Lafayette and Fort Wayne in 16th and 17th place and Iowa’s Sioux City in 20th—helped to convince Realtor.com Chief Economist Jonathan Smoke that other regions of the country might be poised to give California a run for its money.

“The Midwest region is representative of the status of the broader U.S. recovery,” Smoke said. “When Columbus, OH, is the 10th hottest market in the country, you know that the Midwest—and the U.S. overall—is back and doing well. The Northeast is seeing much stronger year-over-year growth in today’s pending home sales data than the Midwest or any other region, but the Midwest’s growth is better than the U.S. overall.”