Second quarterly release of Wall Street Journal/realtor.com Emerging Housing Markets Index. Identifies markets that likely good areas for homeowners and investors to purchase a home.
Second Release of Emerging Housing Markets
Not only is owning a home a major source of wealth that provides individuals and families with shelter, owning a home is a tangible asset that affects the financial realities of more people and families than the US stock market. Why? More Americans own homes than Americans who own stocks.
This second release of the Wall Street Journal/realtor.com Emerging Housing Market Index identifies markets that are likely good places in which to buy homes for both individuals and investors. Markets mentioned on these lists are expected by experts to offer individual and investor buyers home price growth and appealing lifestyle amenities.
What’s New/Different to Second Release?
Based upon reader feedback, the Wall Street Journal/realtor.com added real estate taxes data to its Emerging Housing Market Index methodology.
The result? Areas with higher effective real estate taxes were ranked lower and areas with lower effective real estate taxes were ranked higher. This “addition” boosted metro areas located in the South and West and lowered metro areas in the Northeast and Midwest including Texas and Alaska.
WSJ/Realtor.com Top-20 Emerging Housing Markets
- Billings Montana
- Coeur d-Alene Idaho
- Fort Wayne Indiana
- Rapid City South Dakota
- Raleigh North Carolina
- Portland-South Portland Maine
- Waco Texas
- Johnson City Tennessee
- Bangor Maine
- Huntsville Alabama
- Topeka Kansas
- Jefferson City Missouri
- Elkhart-Goshen Indiana
- Colorado Springs Colorado
- Eureka-Arcata-Fortuna California
- Springfield Ohio
- Manchester-Nashua New Hampshire
- Concord New Hampshire
- Burlington North Carolina
- Elizabethtown-Fort Knox Kentucky
Smaller Markets Dominate
Like last quarter’s ranking, smaller markets dominated this Q2 2021 top-20 emerging markets list. The average population size among these top-20 markets was just above 300,000, save Raleigh NC with a population of 1.4M.
Median Listing Prices More Affordable
The median listing price of homes among these top-20 metro areas was $349,900 compared with a median listing price of $361,900 overall. This lower median listing price means that these areas have more room for home prices to grow while all homes within these top 20 areas have seen prices grow +13.7% y/y.
Lower Inventories
Like everywhere else in the country, these top-20 metro areas have been plagued with supply challenges. Active listings fell -46.6% y/y compared to -43.7% among all 300 market areas. Because of this supply imbalance, average DOM hit 18 days.
Thanks to The Wall Street Journal/realtor.com July 2021 Emerging Housing Markets Index.
