After a rocky year of higher than average mortgage rates, America’s housing and real estate markets are expected to stabilize in 2025. Prospective home buyers are likely to see greater opportunities in the housing market in terms of affordability, inventory, and stable mortgage rates, opening the doors to homeownership.
According to a newly released report from the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the South region continues to lead the way of growth with four of the top 10 housing hot spots, followed by the Midwest.
“Important factors common among the top performing markets in 2025 include available inventory at affordable price points, a better chance of unlocking low mortgage rates, higher income growth for young adults, and net migration into specific metro areas,” said NAR’s chief economist and senior vice president of research Lawrence Yun in the study.
Housing trends for states including Florida and Texas are forecasted to remain strong in 2025. According to a report from HomesUSA.com, despite a typical holiday slowdown Texas’ housing market is showing resilience as new home sales increased in November.
Data indicates that these two states are forecasted to experience the highest growth in 2025 due to affordability and access to greater employment opportunities.
“By the year 2025, Texas and Florida are speculated to be the active and hot zones for real estate growth. Within Texas itself, Austin, Dallas, and Houston maintain the focus due to the immense job opportunities that allow them to become the centers for technology and business industries,” said Nathan Richardson, founder of www.cashforhome.com. “Companies within the tech industry continue to get attracted to Austin, which, in response, results in more people looking to buy real estate there.”
Multiple Texas cities continue to rank high in terms of access to more affordable housing options.
“San Antonio and Fort Worth in Texas have some of the lowest home prices while ensuring excellent livability among the affordable markets. These regions have robust economies alongside cultural diversity,” said Richardson.
According to Richardson, the thriving economies of cities such as Dallas and Austin are driving a surge in residential building.
“The dynamics of the transition are well underway, with a high likelihood of strong, energetic growth in residential construction from 2024 through 2025. Texas, guided by Austin’s continued exponential population growth as well as Dallas expansion, is seeing an impressive rate of new constructions that, when paired with large corporate relocations, has increased the urban density drastically. The great demand for new housing as a result of population growth in Austin served to fuel the construction of new urban development for several new higher-density residential projects,” continued Richardson.
A few Texas cities also scored well in terms of offering job opportunities in the finance and technology spaces. Commercial real estate website CommercialCafe reported in a study of the top-20 Southern metro areas that Austin ranked as the second-best metro area for tech in the South. The website stated Austin “continues to expand as a tech powerhouse by combining high-tech job and company density with the South’s third-highest growth in tech company density.”
The area’s relocation numbers and residential rental data seems to support Austin’s projected growth.
“Austin is a city where I think we will continue to see further growth in 2025. It’s been growing pretty significantly for the past several years, and a big reason for that is because it’s becoming a tech hub. Lots of startups and tech companies are choosing Austin as their home base, and that is leading to tons of people moving to the area for tech and related jobs. This isn’t predicted to slow down in 2025, and while Austin may be more expensive than most other Texas cities, it is still much more affordable than the likes of other tech hubs like the Bay Area,” said Adam Hamilton, CEO of REI Hub, an accounting software for rental property owners.
Other smaller, less well-known Texas cities topping the charts as some of the fastest growing cities in the United States include: Conroe, Cedar Park, McKinney, Boerne, Frisco, and Georgetown.
