Florida and California may still dominate the imagination of many homebuyers, but the country’s most competitive housing markets are now clustered in suburban pockets of the Northeast and Midwest.
A new analysis from Realtor.com identified the 10 ZIP codes drawing the strongest buyer interest in 2026, and for the fourth year in a row, every one of them is located in either the Northeast or the Midwest.
Peabody, Massachusetts, claimed the No. 1 ranking, narrowly ahead of Montclair and Sewell, both in New Jersey.
Their momentum is striking at a time when the broader U.S. housing market remains sluggish, with home sales subdued and price growth losing steam.
The shift also reflects a sharp slowdown in the pandemic-era migration boom that once pushed buyers toward Sun Belt destinations.
Matt Brown, a William Raveis real estate agent in Naples, Florida, who has handled more than $700 million in sales, said he has watched the market’s mood change up close.
‘The frenzy that sent buyers flooding into Florida from 2020 to 2022 has cooled off,’ Brown told Our News Outlet.
He pointed to soaring property insurance premiums and years of rapid home-price gains as key reasons buyers have become more hesitant.
Homes in Peabody, Massachusetts, were first in a ranking of ten ZIP codes attracting the most attention from buyers in 2026
Montclair, New Jersey, was second with an added perk of being a 40-minute ride to Manhattan
Naples, Florida real estate agent Matt Brown
‘They’re not abandoning the Sun Belt, but they’re doing more math before they commit,’ Brown added.
It has opened the door for suburban towns and cities across the Northeast and Midwest, where buyers can get more space for their housing dollars.
‘The “move to Florida at any cost” urgency of a few years ago has given way to a more measured, value-conscious buyer,’ Brown told us.
Realtor.com’s latest ranking underlines these changes.
Homes in the hottest ZIP codes are attracting up to five times more views per listing than the typical property nationwide, while homes are selling 30 to 42 days faster than the national average.
The findings also highlight the shift toward established suburban communities, where buyers can often get more space while remaining within commuting distance of major employment hubs.
The typical home across the ten hottest ZIP codes is around 2,000sq ft, compared with about 1,800sq ft nationally.
But competition is fierce: Inventory across the top ten remains 60.5 percent below pre-pandemic levels, leaving buyers fighting over a small pool.
The pandemic-era rush to Florida is cooling – now, established suburban communities across the Northeast and Midwest dominate America’s hottest ZIP codes
Proximity to major cities is a big driver for higher rankings in the new report – Peabody is 30 minutes from Boston by car
In some of the Northeast’s most desirable suburbs, that shortage is compounded by homeowners who simply don’t want to leave.
Libby McKinney Twitchler, founder of On the Harbor and a sixth-generation resident of Fairfield County, Connecticut, told Our News Outlet inventory remains ‘very, very, very low’ in her market.
‘People establish themselves here. They raise families and don’t want to leave,’ she told us.
Homeowners who may have sold to downsize are also reluctant to give up their existing mortgage rates, leaving fewer properties available for buyers.
‘People aren’t moving out. People are just staying still,’ Twitchler said. ‘They’re not selling their home to downsize to buy a smaller home to pay the same mortgage price.’
Connecticut also has limited room for new housing, further restricting supply. ‘We don’t have anywhere to build. There’s no land,’ she said.
According to Twitchler, it means communities that remain most desirable are often the ones where new inventory is hardest to create.
Cameron Walker, a real estate agent and manager of the agent network at Clever Real Estate, told Our News Outlet the supply imbalance helps explain why the Northeast and Midwest are dominating.
Sewell and Montclair have easy New York commutes with access to the NJ Transit trains
In Connecticut, inventory remains ‘very, very, very low,’ according to one real estate agent
‘Simply put, this has everything to do with supply. There has been little construction activity in those areas over the past decade, so when demand materializes in those ZIP codes, it collides against extremely low inventory,’ Walker told us.
While the Sun Belt continues to attract newcomers, states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona and the Carolinas have built substantially more housing during the boom, spreading demand across a larger number of listings.
‘When you talk about a “hottest ZIP code,” the key factor is competition per unit of supply, and you get white-hot competition where a large number of buyers are competing over very few doors. That’s what’s happening in the Northeast and Midwest,’ said Walker.
Many of the hottest ZIP codes surround the country’s biggest metropolitan areas – including New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago and Detroit – giving buyers access to major job centers while offering more space and, in some cases, lower prices than the cities themselves.
Walker said the common thread among the ten ZIP codes is their location in established suburbs with good schools, local character and relatively short commutes to major employment centers.
‘The dream remains the same: being able to commute to the office and having all the amenities of a big metro area without paying the big-metro prices,’ he said.
At the top of the ranking, which weighed buyer demand and market pace, was Peabody, Massachusetts.
Located on Boston’s North Shore, the city of 54,481 residents sits within commuting distance of Boston, Cambridge and Newton.
In 2026, a Peabody listing had over four times the national average views per property
Homes in Peabody are far from cheap – the median asking price reached $667,000 in June
Named after local financier and philanthropist George Peabody, the city rose to prominence in the 19th century as a global center for leather processing and tanning, earning the nicknames ‘Leather City’ and ‘Tanner City.’
But today, Peabody’s proximity to Boston is what draws homebuyers.
In 2026, the typical listing attracted over four times the average number of views per property and stayed on the market for just 20 days.
The median asking price reached $667,000 in June – roughly $230,000 above the national figure – so homes in Peabody are not cheap.
But they remain significantly more affordable than properties in the Boston metro area, where the typical home costs more than $800,000.
Boston is Peabody’s largest feeder market, accounting for around 70 percent of total out-of-market buyer demand.
New York City was another significant source of interest, accounting for nearly 9 percent of the ZIP code’s listing traffic.
Peabody has history, rising to prominence in the 19th century as a global center for leather processing and tanning
Daniel Amodeo, president of Amo Realty, said Peabody is benefiting from the strength of the wider Boston region and its major employment, education and healthcare hubs
Daniel Amodeo, president of Amo Realty, told Our News Outlet that Peabody is benefiting from the strength of the wider Boston region and its major employment, education and healthcare hubs.
‘The Northeast is home to a very strong infrastructure in the United States. Boston, for example, has over 50 universities including Harvard and MIT, and some of the world’s top hospitals,’ he told us.
Amodeo said affordability relative to major employment centers is a key factor driving buyers farther into the suburbs.
‘One of the biggest factors is affordability relative to nearby employment hubs. Buyers priced out of Boston, New York and other urban markets aren’t all packing up and moving to Florida or Texas,’ he said.
‘Many want access to their existing jobs, families, schools and communities, so they’re expanding their searches farther into the suburbs.’
That dynamic is fueling demand in communities offering an alternative to the country’s most expensive housing markets. It can also create a ripple effect as buyers pushed out of the most competitive areas widen searches.
‘Once buyers are repeatedly outbid or priced out of the hottest suburbs, they don’t always abandon the region. They often expand their radius another 10-20 miles. That can push demand into neighboring communities that weren’t previously considered hot markets,’ Amodeo said.
The median listing price in Montclair was around $1.05m, but buyers were getting substantially more space than in New York
The same dynamic is playing out beyond Massachusetts, with several other Northeast and Midwest suburbs appearing in the hottest ZIP codes.
Montclair, New Jersey, was second, despite being considerably more expensive – especially with the added perk of being a 40-minute ride into the city via the NJ Transit train.
The median listing price was around $1.05 million, but buyers were getting substantially more space than Manhattan.
Montclair homes averaged about 2,625sq ft – nearly 86 percent larger than the typical home in the New York metro area.
But the real Montclair perk comes from its walkable downtown, fine dining scene and vast train options for city commuters.
Sewell, New Jersey, came in third with a median listing price of roughly $426,000 and homes spending just 25 days on the market.
The remaining hotspots included Fairport, New York; Westfield, Massachusetts; Livonia, Michigan; Lititz, Pennsylvania; North Haven, Connecticut; New Berlin, Wisconsin; and Wheaton, Illinois.
Lititz in Pennsylvania was also ranked among some of the most in-demand hotspots
Prices varied widely across the list, from about $338,000 in Livonia to more than $1 million in Montclair.
Overall, the study shows buyers are weighing the cost of moving against the benefits of staying close to their jobs, families, schools and existing communities.
‘A lot of buyers would rather move 30 minutes farther from an expensive city than move 1,000 miles away from everything they already know,’ Amodeo said.
