Which Region Is Most Likely to Outperform in 2020?

If you’re looking for the next hot housing markets for the new year, head south. Zillow surveyed over 100 economists and real estate agents for their housing market predictions on 25 large markets, and of the 14 cities that were rated to outperform, 11 were in the south or southwest. Whether it is their warmer weather, affordable housing prices, or just overall charm, southern cities are expected to win big in 2020. 

A collection of relatively affordable, sun-belt markets are among those in which home value growth in 2020 is most expected to outperform the national average, according to a panel of experts recently surveyed by Zillow.

As part of the Q4 2019 Zillow Home Price Expectations Survey, sponsored by Zillow and administered by Pulsenomics, a panel of more than 100 U.S. economists and real estate experts was asked to rate their 2020 expectations for home value growth compared to the nation in 25 large markets nationwide. On average, panelists said they expected U.S. home values to grow by 2.8% in 2020. In order to create a score for each of the 25 markets analyzed, the share of panelists saying they expected a market to outperform that average was weighed against the share saying they expected it to underperform.

Austin, Atlanta and Charlotte, scored highest among the panelists, with scores of 76, 59 and 51, respectively. A whopping 83% of respondents said they expected Austin to outperform, undercut slightly by the 7% that said they expected the Texas state capital to underperform. And even though Charlotte received a lower overall score than Austin, it was the only market among the 25 analyzed in which none of the panelists said they expected it to underperform.

Of the 14 markets that received a positive score (a higher share of panelists said they expected the market to outperform than underperform), 11 were in Texas or elsewhere in the Southwest or Southeast. Portland, Minneapolis and Denver were the only non-Southern markets to make the list of those expected to outperform.

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