Zillow published its Market Heat Index for March 2025 earlier this month. The data may be a month old, but with respect to real estate sales data, this is about as recent as it gets (while not sacrificing accuracy).
Out of the top 300 markets (by size), the top 10 seller’s markets are:
- Rochester, NY (Market heat: 185)
- Buffalo, NY (128)
- Syracuse, NY (102)
- Hartford, CT (99)
- Charleston, WV (97)
- Albany, NY (95)
- Ann Arbor, MI (92)
- Manchester, NH (92)
- Janesville, WI (89)
- Boston, MA (89)
While not all of these markets are extremely affordable (Ann Arbor and Boston, for example), a pattern that can easily be seen in the map is that Northeast and Midwest markets are seeing sales action they didn’t during 2021-2022 as the Sunbelt markets did.
And speaking of the Sunbelt, that’s where pretty much all the coolest buyer’s markets are:
- Albany, GA (Market heat: 7)
- Jackson, TN (16)
- Gulfport, MS (24)
- Dothan, AL (25)
- Macon, GA (26)
- Brownsville, TX (26)
- Daphne, AL (27)
- Naples, FL (28)
- Beaumont, TX (28)
- Rocky Mount, NC (28)
So what does this mean for investors? If you’re looking to buy an investment out of state, you might finally be able to find deals in Sunbelt markets with strong fundamentals that have cooled.
Let’s now take a look at the percent change in market heat to see which markets have cooled off the fastest since last year:
One discernible pattern is that the seller’s markets around Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, San Diego, and the metros along the Front Range in Colorado have started cooling off compared to their heat last year. While they still remain seller’s markets, we’ll see if the trend continues into next year.
The top 10 markets that have cooled off the most compared to their heat last year are:
- Albany, GA (1-year change in market heat: -80%)
- Jackson, TN (-62%)
- Valdosta, GA (-46%)
- Lafayette, IN (-44%)
- Dothan, AL (-43%)
- Gulfport, MS (-40%)
- Florence, SC (-39%)
- Billings, MT (-37%)
- San Jose, CA (-36%)
- Decatur, AL (-35%)
Deals could start to be found in some of these markets. And of these, I like the fundamentals of Lafayette, IN, for out-of-state investors the most. You can read the Lafayette section in my article The 10 Best Markets For Your First House Hack to learn why.
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