Realtor.com: 15 hottest housing markets—and 15 coldest markets

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To gain insights into which regional housing markets might be vulnerable to pricing weakness in 2024, and which could see the most upward price pressure, ResiClub once again examined Realtor.com's latest "Hotness Score."

Realtor.com, which has the self-proclaimed "most comprehensive and accurate database of MLS-listed for-sale homes in the industry," issues a “Hotness Score” every month for the nation's 300 largest metro-area housing markets. The “Hotness Score” is described as an equally-weighted composite metric of a geography’s “Supply Score” and “Demand Score.” Those scores take into account factors like days on market, inventory shifts, pricing shifts, and unique listing page viewers per property.

A lower score indicates a softer (cold) housing market, while a higher score indicates a stronger (hot) housing market

Click here to view an interactive version of the map below.

Realtor.com's latest "Hotness Score" indicates that housing markets along the Gulf Coast, including places like Lake Charles, La., and Punta Gorda, Fla., remain the weakest. Some of these Gulf and Southwest Florida markets are experiencing a pullback in pandemic-era migration, coupled with significant increases in home insurance premiums and increased consumer credit stress. In certain pockets, such as Austin, home prices got too far detached from underlying fundamentals during the boom.

There still remains a great deal of resilience in the Northeast and Midwest. Places like Manchester, N.H. and Columbus, Ohio just don’t have enough supply to match demand. The result? Elevated house price growth.

Please keep in mind that Realtor.com scores markets relative to each other. In other words, a market with a score of "100.0" is simply the hottest among markets right now, but it may not necessarily be in a boom mode. Similarly, a market with a score of "0.0" isn't necessarily in crash mode; it's just softer compared to other U.S. markets at the moment.

You might notice that Realtor.com’s "Demand Score" and "Supply Score" appear quite similar in most markets. My theory? Some of the metrics that Realtor.com may include in its "Supply Score," such as active listing growth, also serve as a proxy for demand, in my opinion. Indeed, a significant decline in demand can lead to homes lingering on the market, causing inventory to rise, even if the total number of homes available for sale remains constant.

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