November 2, 2026 Weekly Housing Outlook: Refuge Markets Top the Rankings

• Wednesday, November 4: October Monthly Housing Trends Report
• Thursday, November 5: Weekly Housing Data

Recent Reports:

Recent Indicators:

Other Research Referenced:

Housing data for download:

Video Script:

• Introduction:

  • Housing affordability is on the ballot across the country this week. And the election results could shape the federal housing agenda, plus local zoning and property taxes in several states. But whoever wins on Tuesday, come Wednesday morning, all of those political ads will finally be over. And that’s something we’ll all be happy about.
  • I’m Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com, sitting in for chief economist Danielle Hale. Let’s get into the Weekly Housing Outlook.

Featured Report

• • This week’s featured report is a two-for-one. Each quarter, we partner with The Wall Street Journal to find the top-ranked housing markets in America, covering the overall market and the luxury tier.
  • Since summer, a lot has changed. Mortgage rates climbed from around 6.4% in July to over 7% by the end of September. Let’s see how those tougher conditions shaped the rankings.
  • Senior economist Hannah Jones ranked the 200 largest metros on housing market conditions, local economies, and livability. Whenever mortgage rates climb, we start talking about refuge markets again. Those are places where each dollar goes further, so buyers head there when affordability takes a hit.
  • And this quarter’s top-10 list is basically a map of refuge markets. Half are in the Great Lakes states, including Appleton, Wisconsin, South Bend, Indiana and Canton, OH. What a season for Wisconsin by the way. The Brewers win the World Series and Appleton takes the number one spot.
  • The other half of the top 10 are smaller metros near pricier ones, like Lancaster and Reading outside of Philadelphia, or Manchester, New Hampshire, a short drive from Boston.
  • These markets are all about relative bargains. In Canton, Ohio, for example, the typical monthly payment runs a third below the national average. But people will pay for value, and the secret is getting out. Asking prices across the top-20 are up 1.1% over the past year, while prices nationally are down.
  • Senior economist Anthony Smith ran the same exercise for 60 luxury markets, and those buyers are chasing value too. Lifestyle markets that led earlier this year, like Boulder and San Jose, fell out of the top 10 in the fall. And St. Louis meanwhile grabbed the headlines, jumping from number 12 to number 1. Luxury starts around $670,000 there, versus $1.2 million nationally. So a national luxury budget would land you in the top 5% of St. Louis listings.
  • Two metros made both the overall and luxury lists: Portland, Maine, and Bridgeport, Connecticut. I guess everyone really does love New England in the fall.

• The Week Ahead:

  • Now, to the week ahead. It starts light, with Monday clear and all eyes on Election Day Tuesday, before the research reports and market indicators kick into gear.
  • Wednesday brings our October monthly housing trends report, written by yours truly. I’ll take a look at whether elevated mortgage rates caused buyers or sellers to pull back more, as well as what happened to inventory, asking prices, and contract signings. As we await October’s data, let’s take a look back at the September snapshot, which showed a housing market softening under the weight of rising mortgage rates. Median list prices fell, while inventory and price cuts rose. I expect more of the same from the October data, when mortgage rates hit their highest levels since 2023.
  • Speaking of mortgage rates, Thursday brings another Freddie Mac reading and commentary from senior economist Hannah Jones, alongside the Realtor.com weekly data update.
  • It’s too early to call the direction of rates this week. But I’ll be watching the bond market, especially the 10-year yield, for any reaction to the midterms, new developments in the Middle East, and any Fed signals about a December hike.
  • Rates matter locally too. For buyers in Phoenix, Tucson, Raleigh, Charlotte, and Louisville November 1st through 7th is your best time to buy. If rates ease for a third week in a row, buyers there and elsewhere could have more purchasing power than a month ago, more homes to choose from than a year ago, and fewer buyers to compete with. That’s a winning combination heading into the slow season.
  • One final indicator: I’ll be up bright and early Friday morning to track the latest labor market data, which covers October unemployment and job growth. September was disappointing but not a disaster, adding just 29,000 jobs while unemployment rose to 4.2%. We expect the low-hire, low-fire labor market to continue, which keeps the Fed focused on inflation ahead of its December meeting.

The Weekly Review:

• • Now let’s look back at last week. And it was a busy one!
  • Starting with what happened, or didn’t, at the Fed. As expected, the FOMC held its policy rate steady last Wednesday. But the decision was not unanimous, with two members voting for a hike. Markets expect a few more hikes in the coming months, likely starting in December.
  • Why did the Fed hold? One thing Chairman Warsh said is financial markets have been doing the Fed’s tightening for it, with bond yields and mortgage rates surging over the past two months. Recently, though, mortgage rates have taken a U-turn. The Freddie Mac rate came in at 7.24% last Thursday, the second straight weekly decline. That’s right back to where we started October, but still more than a full percentage point higher than a year ago.
  • Also last week, we got the latest Case-Shiller home price data. And… Stop me if you’ve heard this before, house price growth really depends on where you live. Nationally, home prices were up 2.1% from a year ago, led by Chicago at nearly 7% and New York and Cleveland next. Seattle, Las Vegas, and Denver, meanwhile, all saw prices fall. So the regional split continues, with the Northeast and Midwest going one way and the South and West another. Keep in mind this data lags a few months, reflecting sales through August.
  • For a current read, our weekly data shows both sides of the market are back to sitting on the sidelines. Active listings are up 8% from a year ago—the fastest pace since January—as buyers step back and let listings pile up. New listings are falling again, and the median asking price is down 1.4% year on year, continuing 41 straight weeks of price declines.
  • Meanwhile, the new-home market is slowing too. New-home sales slipped in September, running about 5% below last year. Builders are feeling it, with a record backlog of homes for sale that haven’t even broken ground. The silver lining is that it’s a buyer’s market for new construction, and homes are priced to move. The typical new home now sells for about $400,000 – down from a year ago and below the typical price of an existing home.
  • One final indicator was the Housing Vacancy Survey: a quarterly look at homeownership and vacancy rates. The homeownership rate held steady at 65.5%, but rental vacancy climbed to 7.6%, the highest in over a decade. That means renters have more choice than they’ve had in years, while ownership stays stuck.
  • Besides the rankings we opened with, senior economist Jiayi Xu published a pair of rental reports last week, and it truly was a tale of two cities. In New York rents are up. In Los Angeles they’re down. Let’s dig in a little deeper.
  • In New York, rents hit a record, with the typical asking rent now almost $3,800, up 4.5% from last year. Manhattan in particular is up more than 8%, meaning renters now need to earn over $215,000 to qualify for the median rental there. Buying isn’t much of an out in New York City either. Owning a typical home costs nearly $7,000 a month more than renting. That’s about 184% more.
  • Los Angeles tells the opposite story. Asking rents are down 3.6% from a year ago, to about $2,550, as a wave of new apartments and backyard units hit the market. Yet buying is just as far out of reach, about 185% more than renting. So although rents are moving in opposite directions, buyers hit the same wall in both cities. And that’s one reason people are heading to refuge markets.
  • One more from last week, and it’s also about creative solutions to the affordability crisis. Senior economist Joel Berner’s manufactured housing report, which Danielle featured last week, found a $200,000 manufactured home with 3% down costs just over $1,300 a month – roughly half the typical site-built payment. Federal law has cleared the way for manufactured housing under the ROAD to Housing Act, and now it’s up to local governments to follow through on zoning.

Questions from the Mailbag:

• • Let’s hop over to the mailbag. Keep your questions coming in the comments and on social, and yours could be featured here.

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