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Looking to purchase a home? These U.S. cities are the most buyer-friendly.
Prospective homebuyers in search of less competition and more selection may want to consider moving to the South, according to a housing market heat index from real estate marketplace Zillow.
That’s because a boom in construction in Texas and Florida has stabilized home prices and eased competition in those regions, Zillow’s new index shows. If fewer homes go pending quickly, more listings see price cuts or fewer buyers click on a listing, the index will trend toward buyers.
In most major U.S. cities, buyers this year face slim pickings compared with the number of homes for sale before the pandemic, however, inventory in Texas cities Austin and San Antonio has actually grown higher. In Florida, cities Tampa, Orlando and Jacksonville “have among the smallest deficits,” according to Zillow.
The Sunshine and Lone Star states were the only two in the nation last year where applications for building permits on new single-family residences exceeded 125,000, according to U.S. Census data. Applications for building permits in Florida jumped to 125,773 in 2023, up from only 99,831 in 2019. In Texas, the number of permits in 2023 was a whopping 149,860, up from 129,094 in 2019.
Those construction figures are no fluke, Robert Dietz, chief economist at the National Association of Home Builders, told CBS MoneyWatch.
“What stands out about Texas and Florida is strong population growth and strong employment growth,” he said. “That, combined with relatively lower regulatory burdens on land development and construction, means outsized gains for home construction in these states.”
No matter the state, buying a home has been a tough proposition for many Americans, as mortgage rates and home prices remain elevated. The average interest rate on a fixed 30-year home loan is 7%, according to Freddie Mac. Meanwhile, the median U.S. home sale price hit a record $383,725 in April, according to Redfin.
“Prospective buyers in most markets today are feeling less intense competition than in recent spring shopping seasons,” Skylar Olsen, Zillow’s chief economist, said in a statement. “However, the pool of homes for sale remains remarkably low. This means the nation remains a seller’s market despite high mortgage rates.”
Using listings-based metrics, Zillow researchers examined the nation’s 50 largest U.S. metro areas to determine where homes are selling the fastest, where price cuts are happening the most, where housing inventory is growing the most and where home values are climbing. The resulting index reveals which cities have the most buyer-friendly markets — less-frenzied competition, more robust and affordable inventory — and which are more favorable to sellers. In seller-friendly regions, homes sell quickly with few price cuts and fewer options from which to choose.
Though only the first four are considered buyer’s markets, here are the top 10 most buyer-friendly markets according to Zillow, along with average home values in each region:
- New Orleans, $242,593
- Miami, $489,836
- Tampa, Florida, $381,137
- Jacksonville, Florida, $359,942
- Memphis, Tennessee, $241,995
- Orlando, Florida, $397,716
- San Antonio, Texas, $290,355
- Austin, Texas, $468,707
- Houston, $311,004
- Atlanta, $386,193
Top 10 seller-friendly markets according to Zillow, along with average home values in each region:
- Buffalo, New York, $258,964
- San Jose, California, $1,642,546
- San Francisco, $1,198,046
- Hartford, Connecticut, $357,099
- Boston, $698,003
- Seattle, $755,037
- Milwaukee, $346,140
- Providence, Rhode Island, $478,431
- Minneapolis, $374,434
- New York, $658,935
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Sen. Mark Kelly says feds need to do a “better job” of letting Americans know “there’s a huge amount of misinformation” on election
Washington — Sen. Mark Kelly said Sunday that the federal government needs to do its part to inform Americans of the vast swath of election misinformation that’s being consumed on social media platforms like X, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.
“It’s up to us, the people who serve in Congress and in the White House to get the information out there, that there is a tremendous amount of misinformation in this election, and it’s not going to stop on Nov. 5,” Kelly said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.”
Kelly, who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said he’s seen these misinformation operations target not only his state of Arizona, but also other battleground states.
“There is a very reasonable chance I would put it in the 20 to 30% range, that the content you are seeing, the comments you are seeing, are coming from one of those three countries: Russia, Iran, China,” Kelly said.
In a committee hearing last month on foreign threats to the 2024 election, Kelly presented screenshots of Russian-made web pages showing fabricated headlines designed to look like Fox News and The Washington Post, targeted at voters in battleground states.
“So my constituents in Arizona and others — they seek to influence the outcome of these elections, and that is absolutely beyond the pale,” Kelly said at the Sept. 18 hearing. “We’ve got to do something about it.”
Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump each have the support of 49% of Arizona voters, according to CBS News’ battleground tracker as of Sept. 30.
In another battleground state, Pennsylvania, Trump returned Saturday to hold a rally in Butler three months after an attempted assassination on him. He was joined by members of his own party and billionaire Elon Musk, who said Trump was the only way to preserve democracy and warned of a last election if he does not win in November.
Speaking to CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday, Kelly called the social media mogul a hypocrite.
“He’s standing next to the guy that tried to overturn the 2020 election on Jan. 6, saying that this is somehow going to be the last election and they’re going to take away your vote,” Kelly said. “And you know, it just doesn’t pass the logic test.”
At the White House press briefing on Friday, President Biden – speaking from the podium for the first time since taking office – said he’s confident of a free and fair election but alluded to the 2021 insurrection at the Capitol in his concerns on whether it will be a peaceful transfer of power.
“The things that Trump has said and the things that he said last time out when he didn’t like the outcome of the election were very dangerous,” Mr. Biden said. “If you notice, I noticed that the vice-presidential Republican candidate did not say he’d accept the outcome of the election, and they haven’t even accepted the outcome of the last election.”
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