What’s the nation’s hottest housing market? Hint, check the Permian Basin

Midland photo by Jon P. Uzzel a building being taken down in downtown Midland in 2007.

What the hottest housing market in the country? Hint: There’s a lot of oil out there.

Yessire bubba, it’s little ol’ Midland, for the second month in a row.

Nine other states represented in the top 20 list: Texas, Massachusetts, Ohio, Idaho, New York, Michigan, Colorado, Indiana, Washington and Wisconsin. Two months ago the list was dominated by California markets when the top 10 included: San Francisco; Vallejo, Calif.; San Jose; Santa Cruz; Sacramento; and Stockton. Several of these markets made the list of top areas Californians are looking to leave, released earlier this month.

“The California housing market has been hot for a long time – but may be too hot. Our May hotness index further confirms we’re seeing that as prices in California continue to soar, people are increasingly looking elsewhere,” said Javier Vivas, director of economic research for realtor.com. “As we continue into what we expect to be the hottest home-buying season in history, look for a wide variety of locales to remain red-hot.”

- FWBP Digital Partners -

Spill-over of demand for more affordable markets is also as evident as ever in the list, with seven Midwest metros in the top 20, the highest since realtor.com started tracking. Markets that saw the largest jump in hotness last month were Fort Wayne, Indiana. and Grand Rapids, Michigan, which moved up 20 and 16 spots, respectively, since April likely due to their cold climate delaying the start of spring buying season.

Nationally, inventory declined 6 percent year over year in May and increased 6 percent compared to April 2018, according to realtor.com monthly data. Median listing prices only grew 8 percent year over year for the third month in a row, down from 10 percent in February. Part of this deceleration can be attributed to 557,000 new listings hitting the market in May, the highest number since July 2015.

Realtor.com creates the list by analyzing housing market supply and demand by using realtor.com listing views as an indicator of demand and median days on market as an indicator of supply.