The Hottest Housing Markets for 2024: Desirable Housing Market Locations

The Hottest Housing Markets for 2024

 US housing markets have a long history of understanding the pulse of growing America. The metric is still used by big corporations, various state government agencies, and the federal government to help them formulate better growth policies for themselves.

In 2024, let's look at the hottest housing market. Buffalo, NY This Northeastern state has an increased job growth rate and relative house appreciation compared to other regions of the US. Now let’s take an overview of the housing market. 

Housing Markets in the US

 The housing market in the US, as with any other country, is vast and diverse. There will be inter- and intra-regional differences in a country like the US. The country's big cosmopolitans show that certain parts of the country will have heavy demand, and in other parts of the country, even old housing units will be difficult to sell.

This vast contrast needs to be managed both in terms of policy and in terms of why specific places have heavy demand. To categorize them, the housing market is classified into two broad categories based on demand and supply.

 Hot housing markets

• This term is used for areas with heavy demand and buyers outpace sellers. These areas will see fiercer competition for coveted properties, and it will not augur for good market health and prices. 

Cool housing markets

• They are primarily about the fewer areas with less demand. They are considered less competitive in terms of price appreciation. Still, they are also about the purchasing capacity of people in that area, so there's an intrinsic market force at play in these sorts of areas, not that there was no demand in that place. 

With these points in mind, let's look at the housing market index prepared by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) along with Wells Fargo.

US Housing Market Index

The NAHB website releases monthly data for single-family homes, i.e., standalone homes, based on the three input categories: the sale of new homes in present times and in the next six-month time frame, and prospective traffic to buy new homes in the future. 

This index calculates the first two categories based on “good,” "fair,” or "poor,” and the last category of traffic on a scale of “high to very high,” "average,” or “low to very low.”

• The first two categories are calculated based on the formula (good - poor + 100) / 2. 
• The third category of traffic flow is calculated based on the formula (high/very high - low/very low + 100) / 2

The resulting numbers are weighted and range from 1 to 100 on the HMI score. 

For March, here are the numbers released on the 18th of March at 10:00 AM Eastern Time. For April, it will be released on April 15th. Along with this data, it is also calculated for regional house market areas in the USA. 

National HMI (Seasonally Adjusted)

Regional HMI (Seasonally Adjusted)

The overall HMI score of 51 points shows that the housing market seems to be in good condition and market sentiment is positive.  

Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) and Housing Market

The Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) are measured by the U.S. Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to have better policy measures in place for labor market and per capita income level calculation. By definition, areas that have one urbanized area of 50,000 or more in population are said to be the Metropolitan Statistical Area.  

In the case of the housing market, they are considered the base data to look at,  and select MSA regions across the US, and pick out single-family homes in that area. This will help the demand forecast in the housing market and provide certain indicators of how markets will move.

So, without the MSA data, the housing market data will be incomplete as they show real estate demand in certain MSAs that can be attributed to job growth, affordability, or the non-availability of disposable personal income on hand.       

Zillow’s Top Hottest Housing Markets 

Zillow released the top-hottest housing market in the US based on demographics, home price appreciation, and job growth. Zillow’s data show that Buffalo, New York, is the hottest housing market in the US.

It is a city that is located in the northeast region of the US and has the highest HMI score (housing market index). Zillow data pretty much correlates with HMI Index regional data, as the regions northeast and south have, respectively, 61 and 52.

The CMAs of that region are pretty much on that list, with most cities from Ohio, like Cincinnati, Columbus, and Cleveland, dominating the northeastern list. As far as the south is concerned, Orlando and Tampa from Florida are also there, showcasing almost the entire eastern seaboard, which dominates it and shows a huge disparity in the hot housing market in the US.

The demographics that are responsible for it are baby boomers and millennials, who are driving the demand. Below is the full list of cities in the top 10 hottest housing markets.