From today's WSJ. Note the median housing price, which may factor into the ranking. That won't even get you a tiny studio around here.
A decade ago, Rockford, Ill., was the underwater mortgage capital of America. Today, it is the country’s top real-estate market, according to The WSJ/Realtor.com Housing Market Ranking.
Rockford attracts home buyers who are drawn to its affordable housing stock and its growing healthcare, aerospace and logistics industries. The Rockford metro area, about 90 miles from Chicago and Milwaukee, offers easy access to its larger neighbors. A direct train line to Chicago is due to open in a few years....
The median listing price of a home in the Rockford metro area soared to $235,000 in March, up a stunning 51.7% compared with a year ago, which is the largest gain of any metro area in the ranking’s top 20.
Rockford is one of 11 Midwestern metro areas that dominate the top 20 in the latest WSJ/Realtor.com Housing Market Ranking. The region’s relative affordability makes it attractive when home prices in much of the U.S. are near record highs. Three of the four top-ranked cities—all in the Midwest—had median home price listings in March below $250,000. That compares with the national median listing price of $424,900, according to Realtor.com.
Another inducement: Homes in the Midwest are usually less vulnerable to natural disasters. Surveys show that wildfires, floods and hurricanes—and exploding insurance costs associated with these events—are a growing concern among home buyers....
The city has come a long way since its underwater mortgage days in 2013, when nearly one-third of the metro area’s mortgages were for homes that were worth less than the money owed on them. Today, manufacturing companies in the Rockford region employ more than 20,000 people, according to McNamara. Among the area’s most notable employers are Collins Aerospace and Ingersoll Machine Tools, which opened a new manufacturing and assembly center in 2022.
A shortage of available listings is driving Rockford’s hot housing market, even though the area’s population has barely changed from 2020 levels of around 337,000....
A normal market in the Rockford metro area has around 1,000 homes for sale, said Dianne Parvin, another Rockford real-estate agent. In March, there were only about 230 active listings....
The WSJ/Realtor.com Housing Market Ranking looked at the 200 largest metro areas in the country and ranked them based on a variety of economic and lifestyle factors, including housing supply, housing demand, property taxes, unemployment and proximity to popular retail and restaurant chains such as Starbucks, Costco and Home Depot.
For the first time, the ranking also looked at the percentage of homes in each market that are at risk of being affected by extreme heat, wind, air quality, flood and wildfire over the next 30 years.
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