Despite the affordability crisis raging across the nation, about 25% of Metropolitan Statistical Areas had very healthy markets in the second quarter, while 50% had sustainable housing activity, according to a report by Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company.
MSAs with very healthy housing markets show rankings of two or more, whereas MSAs with rankings one or more show relatively sustainable housing affordability.
On the other hand, the bottom 10 MSAs had negative rankings, indicating a modest risk of a housing slowdown over the next year. Most of these are MSAs in energy-intensive states such as North Dakota, Wyoming, Texas and Louisiana.
About 61 MSAs are rated as neutral, one step away from modestly unsustainable activity.
Nationwide’s Leading Index of Healthy Housing Markets is calculated using a number of variables that describe many of the drivers of the housing market for each MSA such as employment, demographics, the mortgage market and home prices.
These drivers are used to derive an overall LIHHM score on a scale from 75 to 125 centered around a neutral value of 100. These values are placed into performance rankings to allow for better comparisons across MSAs.
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(Source: Nationwide)
The Midwest and Northeast regions are the strongest on average, solid job gains, healthy mortgage market fundamentals, and sustainable house price gains are more widespread in these areas, according to the report.
Here are the report’s top 10 healthiest housing markets:
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(Source: Nationwide)
And, alternatively, the country’s least healthy housing markets:
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(Source: Nationwide)
