Technically spring doesn’t start until March 20, but looking at the state of the housing market, buyers would be wise to jump in now.
“I would use the phrase ‘pent-up-demand’ liberally — we’re seeing it come through in the marketplace,” said Jonathan Smoke, realtor.com’s chief economist, who analyzed realtor.com data for the first three weeks of February.
“The people who didn’t buy last year were frustrated because they were outbid or couldn’t find a home that met their needs,” he said. “So they more or less took the holidays off, and are back with way more intensity.”
realtor.com released its latest list of the 20 hottest housing market to find out where in the country has the best availability and the highest demand.
To make the list, they used the number of listing views by market as an indicator of demand and median days on market as an indicator of supply.
Markets on the list are viewed two to five times more often than the national average, and homes move off the market 44 to 78 days more quickly than elsewhere in the U.S. They have also seen days on market drop by a combined average of 7% year over year, realtor.com said.
And as an added note to sellers, realtor.com said that if they think they should just sit tight and wait till buyers’ desperation reaches its peak in the summer, don’t. “Consider this: According to our user surveys, 80% of sellers intend to go on and buy another home. That means that they, too, need to get ahead of the competition in the market,” the report said.
Here’s the full list of the 20 hottest housing markets in February, with San Francisco sitting in the top spot for the fourth month in a row.
20. Tampa, Florida
19. Palm Bay, Florida
18. Colorado Springs, Colorado
17. Nashville, Tennessee
16. Portland, Oregon
15. Eureka, California
14. Modesto, California
13. Boulder, Colorado
12. Los Angeles, California
11. Sacramento, California
10. Oxnard, California
9. Stockton, California
8. Santa Rosa, California
7. Santa Cruz, California
6. San Diego, California
5. Vallejo, California
4. Denver, Colorado
3. Dallas, Texas
2. San Jose, California
1. San Francisco, California
