The Hottest and Coldest Housing Markets in America: Summer 2021
By Joshua Baum, Founder & CEO
Through June 2021, the mad dash to buy single-family homes nationwide has continued. This has especially been the case in the Mountain West metros as the proliferation of work from home, healthy job markets, and their relatively cheap home prices have attracted households from the superstar cities along the Pacific Coast. Additionally, many older millennials reached home-buying age, interest rates have remained low, and the decrease in leisure and hospitality spending since the beginning of the pandemic has given households more money for a down payment has helped spike the demand for homes. The apartment rental market has been a different story though as the demand for apartments in the expensive superstar metros has declined over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, but a bunch of metro areas out West have experienced fairly steep increase in rents over this time period.
Using data from Zillow, the remainder of this piece will rank the fastest and slowest growing single-family housing and apartment rental markets nationwide. Additionally, we will rank the most expensive and cheapest housing markets.
Single-Family Housing Market
National
The national median sale price for a single-family home stood at $318,875 in June 2021. This represented a year-over-year increase of 19.8%, significantly higher than the 3.8% gain during the previous June 2019 to June 2020 time period.
Metros with the Greatest Increase in Prices
The five metropolitan areas that experienced the greatest year-over-year gains in median sales prices were the Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos (44%), Boise City-Nampa, ID (39.9%), Provo-Orem (29.5%), San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward (28.7%) and the Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale (28.4%) metros. With the exception of the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward metro, all of these are in the notoriously hot Mountain West region. Long known for their natural beauty, these metros have become destinations of choice for remote workers seeking refuge from the more expensive coastal metros, have growing local economies, and have been able to retain local talent that grew up and/or were educated in the region.
Metros with the Slowest Growth in Prices
The five metropolitan areas that saw the slowest growth in home prices year-over-year were the Winston-Salem (-3.5%), Greensboro-High Point (1.3%), Honolulu (3.4%), Baltimore-Columbia-Towson (5.2%), and Akron (5.8%) metros. Unlike the previous iteration of this piece, where most of the slow price growth metros were in the Rust Belt, there is more geographic diversity now as metros in North Carolina, Hawaii, Maryland, and yes, the Rust Belt, made it onto the list.
The Most Expensive Metros
The five most expensive metros to buy a home were all found in supply-constrained coastal California. The San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ($1.26 million) is the most expensive area to buy in followed by the San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward ($1.04 million), Los Angeles-Long Beach, Anaheim ($817,218), Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura ($752,004), and the San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad ($741,076) metros.
The Cheapest Metros
The five cheapest metro areas to buy a single-family home were all found in the Rust Belt regions of Ohio and upstate New York. The cheapest MSA was once again Toledo ($147,401) and they were followed by the Akron ($167,721), Dayton ($169,060), Syracuse ($170,332), and Cleveland-Elyria ($179,469) metros.
Apartment Rental Market
National
The median apartment rent nationwide stood at $1,796 per month in July 2021. This represented a year-over-year increase of 5.6%, significantly higher than the 1.4% rent gain during the previous one year time period, July 2019 to July 2020.
Metros with the Greatest Increase in Rents
The five metropolitan areas that experienced the greatest year-over-year gains in median rents were the Boise City-Nampa, ID (20.3%), Spokane-Spokane-Valley (17.9%), Phoenix-Mesa-Scottsdale (16.6%), Gainesville, GA (16.3%), and Las Vegas-Henderson-Paradise (15.9%) metros. Similar to the single-family housing market, several Mountain West metros topped the list of metros experiencing the greatest year over year growth in apartment growth for essentially the same reasons.
Metros with the Greatest Fall/Slowest Increase in Rents
The five metropolitan areas that saw the greatest fall/ slowest increase in rents year-over-year were the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara (-3.4%), San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward (-3.1%), New York-Newark-Jersey City (-2.7%), Boston-Cambridge-Newton (-0.2%), and Washington, DC (0.5%) metros. These regions not so coincidentally have consistently remained among the most expensive areas to rent in and given the increase in work from home opportunities and the decline of urban amenities, many renters likely relocated to cheaper areas.
Most Expensive Metros to Rent
As many would expect, four of the five most expensive metro areas to rent an apartment were located in California. The San Francisco-Oakland-Hayward ($2,875) in July 2021 was the most expensive metropolitan area to rent in followed by the San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara ($2,868), Oxnard-Thousand Oaks-Ventura ($2,805), Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim ($2,611), and Honolulu ($2,461) MSAs. Just like the single-family housing market, as long as the demand to live in California and Honolulu continues to outstrip that of the new supply of housing, we can expect their apartment rents to continue to be among the most expensive in the nation.
Cheapest Metros to Rent
The cheapest metro to rent an apartment in July 2021 were the Youngstown-Warren-Boardman MSA ($782) and they were followed by the Wichita ($870), Scranton-Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton ($977), Little Rock-North Little Rock-Conway ($978), and McAllen-Edinburg-Mission ($994) metros. It is worth noting that while these areas today might be the cheapest metros to rent an apartment in, they might not be soon given the massive amounts of spending on infrastructure, housing, and economic development initiatives happening in these areas.
About Hilgard Analytics
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About the Author
Joshua Baum is a highly respected urban planner with extensive experience analyzing residential and commercial real estate markets, researching climate action strategies, developing economic and workforce development plans, and organizing successful political campaigns. He has made appearances on KPCC (SCPR) 89.3 FM and has been published by Planetizen, the Abundant Housing LA Blog, the Daily Bruin, and Ha’am Jewish Newsmagazine.
Before founding Hilgard Analytics, Joshua worked as a Research Associate at one of California’s most prestigious economic research consulting firms. While attending graduate school, he participated in multiple fellowships such as the Summer Associate program at the Southern California Association of Governments and the Graduate Student Researcher program at the UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies. Additionally, Joshua worked on several local political campaigns in Orange County during the 2016 election cycle.
Joshua received a BA in Political Science from UCLA and a M.A. in Urban Planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. He can be followed on Twitter @JoshuaBaum93
