Wallethub: Best Real Estate Markets

Whether you’re joining the real-estate business or just looking for a place to call home, it’s important to get a handle on the housing markets you’re considering before investing in a property. This year, the housing market is skewed much more toward sellers, with mortgage rates continuing to trend upward and home values having risen over 1.4% in the last year on average. 

If you aim for long-term growth, equity and profit with your housing purchase, you’ll need to look beyond tangible factors like square footage and style. Those factors certainly drive up property values. From an investor’s standpoint, though, they hold less significance than historical market trends and the economic health of residents. 

To determine the best local real-estate markets in the U.S., WalletHub compared 300 cities of varying sizes across 17 key indicators of housing-market attractiveness and economic strength. Our data set ranges from median home-price appreciation to job growth. 

“Current home prices are extremely important, but there’s much more that you need to look at when determining the health of a city’s real estate market. Factors like the cost of living, the potential for the value of homes to increase, the availability of recently-built homes and the quality of the city’s job market are all important to consider in conjunction with asking prices and interest rates. The best cities may not always be the cheapest, but they offer excellent housing options and long-term stability.”

Chip Lupo, WalletHub Analyst

In-Depth Look at the Best Real Estate Markets

McKinney, TX

McKinney, TX, has the best real estate market in the U.S., in large part because of its recent growth. McKinney has the second-highest share of houses that were built between 2010 and 2023, at roughly 38%, which means that new buyers have a lot of options for houses that may not need major maintenance for a while. There are also plenty more new housing options coming, as McKinney has the third-highest number of building permits per capita.

While McKinney isn’t necessarily the cheapest city to move to, it’s also far from the most expensive. The median home price in McKinney is around 365% of the median income, which is the 74th-cheapest out of the 300 cities in our study. In addition, it ranks among the 40 least expensive cities for maintenance and telephone, and energy costs.

To top things off, McKinney has a good job market to go along with its healthy real estate market. It has the 11th-highest job growth rate in the nation, at nearly 21% annually. 

Cary, NC

Cary, NC, has the second-best real estate market, in large part due to its low cost of living. The city has the fourth-lowest home energy costs in the country, along with the fifth-lowest phone service costs and home maintenance costs. 

It can be a bit pricey to buy a house to begin with, as Cary ranks 96th for housing affordability – but that’s still in the cheapest third of the 300 cities in our study. In addition, once people buy a house in Cary, the value is forecasted to rise by 0.1% per year. Although this may not seem much, it’s the 45th-highest increase among the 300 cities in our sample. 

Cary residents also seem to be able to keep up with their housing costs well. The city has the 29th-lowest mortgage delinquency rate and the second-lowest foreclosure rate. The fact that Cary has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country and one of the best job growth rates also helps residents make their payments on time.

Irvine, CA

Irvine, CA, has the third-best real estate market, with the third-highest share of houses that were built between 2010 and 2023, at nearly 32%. That’s good news for people who want all the benefits of a recently-constructed home, like not having to put in a lot of work immediately.

In addition, Irvine is the 11th-cheapest city for phone service and the 20th-cheapest for maintenance and energy. It also has the 15th-lowest mortgage delinquency rate and the 16th-highest median credit score, an affirmation of the residents’ financial responsibility and ability to meet payment deadlines.

Finally, Irvine has one of the best job growth rates in the country, which helps attract new residents to its growing housing market.