Realtor.com’s list of the 20 Hottest Housing Markets in June confirms that affordability is at top of mind for prospective home buyers. The list is dominated by metros located in the Northeast and Midwest, where buyers can find comparatively less expensive housing options than markets in the South and the West. Hartford, Connecticut; Manchester, New Hampshire; Concord, New Hampshire; Rochester, New York; and Springfield, Massachusetts rank as the five hottest markets in June, according to Realtor.com. Concord features the highest median listing price ($565,000), while the median listing price in Rochester is just $285,000.
“Affordability is still very much front and center,” says Hannah Jones, economics data analyst at Realtor.com. That’s especially true as mortgage interest rates are near 7%, stretching the budgets of plenty of would-be buyers.
“We’re also seeing that many homeowners currently have mortgage rates below the market rate, so they’re not interested in selling,” adds Jones. “That means a lot of what’s available is outside of the price range of many buyers.”
The median-priced home in the Hartford metro area was $429,000 in June, below the national median of $445,000. Real estate in the capital of Connecticut cost far less than in New York City, about 2.5 hours southwest, where the median list price was $749,000 in June, according to Realtor.com data. It was also significantly cheaper than in Boston, about a 90-minute drive northeast without traffic. The median list price in the Boston metro was about $864,000 in June.
