Midwest Continues to Top Emerging-Housing-Market Index

New York, NY, July 26, 2023-Three Indiana metro areas topped The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)/Realtor.com Emerging Housing Markets Index for the second quarter: Lafayette, Fort Wayne and Elkhart; followed by Bloomington, Illinois and Sioux City, Iowa.

To rank the 300 biggest metro areas in the U.S., the index incorporates economic and lifestyle data, including real-estate taxes, unemployment, wages, commute time and small-business loans, in addition to housing-market indicators.

The top-ranked markets in the second quarter had faster home sales than the market as a whole, WSJ reports, and 16 of those top 20 markets had median home listing prices in June below the national median of $445,000.

“Elevated mortgage rates have slowed the housing market in the past year and a half by making purchases more expensive for many buyers and by discouraging homeowners from listing their houses for sale,” the article states. “Existing-home sales, which make up most of the housing market, fell 18.9% in June from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors.”