The month’s hottest housing market is not in San Francisco or Seattle — but rather in Midland, Texas.
In November, the industrial West Texas city had some of the fastest-selling and most in-demand homes in the country, according to Realtor.com’s latest market index report. On average, residential properties in the one-time home of former president George W. Bush sold within a median of 44 days while properties in the area received 2.1 more views than the national average.
The report looks at parts of the country in which demand has been growing faster than the number of homes available for sale. The median listing price in Midland is now $358,450 – a 20 percent increase from the same time in 2017. While the report does not outline the reasons for such rapid growth, a strong economy has been pushing professionals — among them many millennials — to move to Texas.
Still, Texas’ Midland and Odessa, another Western industrial town, have been experiencing an explosion in the number of people looking to buy homes. In the latter, houses are spending a median of 42 days on the market and selling 40 percent faster than last year.
Courtesy of Realtor.com
Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Columbus, Ohio, were next on the list of hottest markets — houses there spent 48 and 50 days on the market, respectively. While California’s Sacramento and San Francisco made it in the top 10, homes are generally selling faster in smaller, Midwestern cities fueled by job growth.
But as Realtor.com’s chief economist Danielle Hale pointed out in earlier reports, a hot market may only be a boon if you’re only looking to sell. For buyers, a hot market will mean rising prices and high competition.
“Now it’s such a seller’s market in much of the country, you might not necessarily want to be in the hottest market if you’re a homebuyer,” Hale said in a video that explains the market reports.