During the pandemic, Southern housing markets — especially Florida’s — boomed as record numbers of people moved to the region for its lower cost of living and relatively affordable homes. However, Bankrate’s 2025 Housing Heat Index shows that the trend is now reversing.
Jeff Ostrowski, Bankrate’s housing market analyst, told Business Insider that the Sun Belt has lost its edge as buyer demand fades and home sellers slash prices.
“During the pandemic, Northeasterners were fleeing for the Sun Belt, but that trend has slowed and even reversed,” Ostrowski said, adding that in the North, “there’s just not a lot of inventory, and with limited choices, buyers are bidding up prices.”
The research team at Bankrate analyzed 212 metros in the US, considering factors such as the year-over-year appreciation of home values — the most heavily weighted factor at 40% — along with employment levels, job growth, population trends, homes listed for sale, and typical selling times.
According to Bankrate’s index, the Northeast had a strong showing at the top, with three of the top five hottest markets. This is a stark contrast to the 2023 rankings, in which the hottest markets were largely Southern cities. The New Haven-Milford metropolitan area of Connecticut, for example, found its way to the top five in this year’s ranking but was ranked 82nd in 2023.
On the other end of the spectrum, Florida dominated the coolest markets, taking four of the bottom five spots.
Home prices are increasing all over the country, but in Florida, where home insurance and property taxes are increasing as well, homeowners are feeling even more crunched — and prospective homebuyers would rather wait it out instead of buying.
According to Bankrate’s ranking, the North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton metro in Florida was one of the hottest in the country in 2023, landing in the top five. However, this year, it’s in the bottom five.
“I visited a number of open houses in that market a few months ago, and I saw a lot of lonely listing agents sitting in kitchens and waiting for buyers to come through,” Ostrowski said.
Here are the five hottest and five coldest markets in the US, according to Bankrate. Median home-sale prices are from Zillow.com, and population estimates come from the US Census Bureau.
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