America’s 20 Hottest Real Estate Markets

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Jan 13, 10:03AM EST · Published May 1, 9:53AM EDT

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Once a month, Realtor.com publishes a list of the “20 Hottest Real Estate Market” . The only thing many have in common is that there are in California–50% of the list

Part of the trend in California is that rising markets in real estate lift all boats. An expert from Realtor.com explained some reasons. According to Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of realtor.com:

…close to 550,000 new listings came onto the market in April, which helped total inventory grow 2% over March. However, home sales are accelerating so quickly, the added inventory still isn’t keeping up with demand.

The median age of inventory, which fell 22 days from February to March, dropped by six more days in April. So there are 4% fewer homes available for sale compared with this time last year, and homes are selling five days faster.

“Pent-up demand, lower mortgage rates, and strong employment continue to power the strongest and healthiest real estate market we have seen in a decade.

The hot list includes the California cities based on the number within the 20: 1) San Francisco, 2) Vellago, 4) Santa Rosa, 7) Santa Cruz, 8) Sacramento, 13) San Diego, 14) Stockton, 18) Oxnard, and 19) Modesto.

The California list shows how widespread the recovery is within the state. It is 500 miles from San Francisco to San Diego. Stockton is well inland from the coast and was among the areas hardest hit by the recession and bursting of the housing bubble. The same is true of Sacramento. San Francisco is unique because it is one of the highest priced housing markets. The tech boom is almost certainly the reason for its presence on the “hot market” list.

The balance of the list is spread across the country. Several are in the Midwest: 9) Ann Arbor, 10) Columbus, 17) Lafayette, IN, Fort Wayne, IN, Sioux City, Iowa.

The rest of the markets are spread across the country: 3) Denver, 6) Dallas, 11) Boston, 12) Colorado Springs, and 15) Raleigh.

No need to look at a map. The cities, are, essentially everywhere

About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.