Photo: Rob Bixby/Flickr
Jacksonville, FL has topped listing site Trulia’s new ranking of the top 10 US real estate markets to watch in 2017.
Trulia’s analysts based its ranking by looking at markets with high affordability, strong job growth and low vacancy rates. It also looked at markets with high numbers of home searches on its site and “because of the outcome of the 2016 election, a big population of Republicans.”
Five of the top 10 markets to watch on Trulia’s list were located in Florida — including Jacksonville, which landed in the top spot on the list. Solid inbound-to-outbound home search levels and strong job growth helped elevate Jacksonville to the top spot.
Cape-Coral/Ft. Myers, FL came in second on the list. Despite having a higher job growth rate than Jacksonville and a low vacancy rate, the market is not as affordable, which caused it to fall a notch to number two.
Rounding out the top three was Deltona-Daytona Beach-Ormond Beach, FL. This market also lacked the affordability of Jacksonville, but recorded strong inbound-to-outbound home search ratios and a favorable job growth rate.
Other markets to watch in 2017 were Grand Rapids, MI, Tampa-St. Petersburg, FL, Colorado Springs, CO, Charleston, SC, San Antonio, TX, Phoenix, AZ, and lastly North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton, FL.
Last week, Zillow published its own predictions for the 10 hottest US real estate markets of 2017. Zillow Group owns both Trulia and Zillow. For the Zillow list of the hottest markets in 2017, analysts looked for fast rising home values, low unemployment rates and strong income growth — a contrast to Trulia’s methodology which also took home searches and a large Republican resident base into account.
While the overwhelming majority of the hottest markets featured on Zillow’s top 10 list were located on the West Coast, Trulia’s list was dominated by mostly Southern markets. Also, with the exception of Colorado Springs, no other West Coast market even broke the top 10 on Trulia’s list.
Click here to read the entire report.
