Over Half of Top 100 Metros at New Highs

Since the housing crash and recession in 2008, some metro areas have made full recoveries, while others continue to struggle. And despite the challenges of the market today—high prices and low inventory— recent data reveals 62 of the top 100 metros are at new highs in 2017.

Utilizing the Federal Housing and Finance Agency’s Home Price Index, HSH.com recently released a Q2 report on the top and bottom 10 metros that have recovered the most and the least, respectively.

Though the metros in the top 10 have not changed since last quarter, all moved further above “boom time” peaks for home prices, with the San Francisco and Buffalo metro areas each climbing up by one rank in the top 10 this quarter.

Two metro areas joined the “fully recovered” group, including the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale, California, and the Tacoma-Lakewood, Washington areas, with the Los Angeles metro now 1.05 percent above “boom era” peaks.

The “nearly recovered” group, meaning the next in line to hit “fully recovered” potentially by next quarter, includes Cleveland-Elyria, Ohio and El Paso, Texas metro areas, which need only about 1 percent price increase to become fully recovered.

Three other metros are close as well, including the Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, Florida, Nassau County-Suffolk County, New York, and New York-Jersey City-White Plains, New York-New Jersey metro areas. These areas are in “reasonable range of making the leap in the next quarter or two,” according to the data report.

Returning to the lowest spot on the list after, “climbing off the floor,” in the first quarter is the Las Vegas metro area. While the Tucson, Arizona metro area improved enough to climb out of the bottom 10. Unfortunately, the Elgin, Illinois metro area took its place, which, “suffered a setback in its price recovery after a sizeable leap in the first quarter.

Find out where other metros ranked by clicking here.