The Nation's Hottest Housing Markets

Construction of Vacation Homes and Dorms Stand Out in Latest Building Permit Data

With the 2016 full-year housing data from the U.S. Census Bureau now in, a few trends are apparent — the fastest-growing housing markets are in the Sunbelt, university towns, and retirement developments, as well as in vacation areas near beaches or mountains. Once again, states like Florida, South Carolina and Texas are the clear winners, with individual metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in Arizona and North Carolina outpacing the national average of 2.2% year-over-year (YOY) in total building permits.

Some MSAs stood out for the amazing numbers of permits that were pulled last year, like Austin-Round Rock (13,609 single-family permits); Nashville-Davidson- Murfreesboro-Franklin, TN (12,014 singlefamily permits); and Orlando-Kissimmee- Sanford, FL (14,208 single-family permits). Smaller MSAs showed surprising strength in the Top 50 Housing Markets when measured by EM’s Housing Hotness Index. The Index is the number of total building permits (single-family and multi-family) combined per 1,000 residents. Some had a Hotness Index more than double the national average of 3.8 despite their comparatively small population numbers. These metropolitan areas included Myrtle Beach-Conway-North Myrtle Beach, SCNC (13.0) Bend-Redmond, OR (12.7); and Sioux Falls, SD (11.9).

There now seems to be a surge in dorm and other student housing, too. Several college towns in some relatively small MSAs on EM’s Top 50 Housing Market list posted some big numbers in multi-family construction, due in no small part to new student housing, including Lawrence, KS (University of Kansas); Manhattan, KS (Kansas State University): Fort Collins, CO (Colorado State University); and College Station-Bryan, TX (Texas A&M University).

Click here to download all of the data shown in this map.