Real Estate News Roundup: 50 Best Places to Live; Home Sales Heat Up; Big Cities Cool Off

Features 50 Towns and Cities With Strong Economies, Job Growth, and Booming Housing Markets Despite COVID-19 Disruptions

Following its inaugural list of the Best Mortgage Lenders of 2020, Money—the digital destination for personal finance and news—announces its annual ranking of the Best Places to Live featuring 50 towns and cities where the economy, job growth, and housing market remained strong despite COVID-19 disruptions. This year, Money looked at towns and cities with a population of at least 25,000 and ranked the Best Places to Live putting the greatest emphasis on economic factors, like employment opportunities, as well as supply and demand for homes, cost of living, quality of schools, racial and economic diversity, and health and safety.

Money‘s No. 1 pick for Best Places to Live this year is Evans, Georgia, which is brimming with good-paying jobs thanks to its proximity to Augusta as well as affordable homes, top schools, access to arts and culture, and a diverse population, which some residents attribute to its military presence. In June, Evans residents saw a low unemployment rate of 5.2%, which was well below the 11.1% national average. Evans also had the lowest cost of living of any place with similarly high-income levels.

Parker, Colorado, and Meridian, Idaho, landed in second and third place, respectively. Both cities topped the list because of access to high-paying jobs in the booming tech sector, a healthy economy, and remarkable proximity to nature and outdoor activities. And rounding out the top five were: Rockwall, Texas, and Columbia, Maryland.

Click here to read Money’s 50 Best Places.

Existing-Home Sales Hit Highest Level Since December 2006

Annualized Sales Rate of $6 Million in August

Existing-home sales continued to climb in August, marking three consecutive months of positive sales gains, according to the National Association of Realtors. Each of the four major regions experienced both month-over-month and year-over-year growth, with the Northeast seeing the greatest improvement from the prior month.

Total existing-home sales completed transactions that include single-family homes, townhomes, condominiums, and co-ops, rose 2.4% from July to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 6.00 million in August. Sales as a whole rose year-over-year, up 10.5% from a year ago (5.43 million in August 2019).

The median existing-home price for all housing types in August was $310,600, up 11.4% from August 2019 ($278,800), as prices rose in every region. August’s national price increase marks 102 straight months of year-over-year gains.

Affordable Areas Outside Big Cities Are Heating Up the Fastest As the Pandemic Changes Homebuyers’ Priorities

Relatively inexpensive areas outside major cities—like El Dorado County, just east of Sacramento, and Camden County, across the river from Philadelphia—are gaining ground with homebuyers as New York City and San Francisco lose steam

Nine of the 10 markets where homebuyer competition has intensified the most since last year have median sale prices below $500,000 despite seeing price growth of at least 10% over the last year, according to a new report from Redfin. Housing markets that offer homebuyers more bang for their buck and are located outside of major cities are heating up, with relatively affordable places including El Dorado County, California, and Camden County, New Jersey, rising in popularity as house hunters take advantage of remote work and record-low interest rates.

Meanwhile, iconic coastal hubs such as New York and San Francisco are losing their luster as the coronavirus pandemic accelerates an exodus out of dense, expensive job centers. Seven of the 10 markets that have cooled most in the last year are located in New York (including four of the five New York City boroughs; Manhattan was excluded from this analysis due to insufficient data) and seven have median sale prices above $500,000.

The report is based on a Redfin ranking of the U.S. housing markets that have heated up and cooled down the most over the past year. The ranking is based on year-over-year change in home prices, home sales, the share of homes that sold above their list price, the speed of home sales, and Redfin.com searches.

Find out more here.