Midwest, Northeast Dominate Fall 2026 Housing Market Rankings

Appleton, Wisconsin, is the state’s sixth-most populous city and the county seat of Outagamie County.

It’s also the nation’s top housing market, according to The Wall Street Journal and Realtor.com Economics, which released the Fall 2026 Wall Street Journal/Realtor.com Housing Market Ranking.

Nineteen of the top 20 markets are in the Midwest and Northeast, with Lynchburg, Va., the lone exception, according to the list.

According to the ranking, the national housing market has lost momentum as mortgage rates climbed through the summer and into the fall.

The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage now averages 7.40%, up from 6.27% a year ago, raising the typical monthly principal-and-interest payment by roughly 12% at the same loan amount and putting some buyers’ plans on hold.

Affordability Challenge

At today’s rate, home prices would need to fall 11% to bring the typical payment back to year-ago levels.

“Higher mortgage rates have made the affordability challenge more acute, but they have also sharpened the search for markets where buyers can get more value for their money,” said Hannah Jones, Senior Economist at Realtor.com. “Appleton’s top ranking reflects a broad set of strengths rather than one standout metric, including a strong local economy, relatively low housing and living costs, steady demand, improving inventory, and a high quality of life. The broader list shows that buyers continue to gravitate toward markets where the fundamentals still add up.”

The Fall 2026 Ranking evaluates the 200 most populous U.S. metropolitan areas using a combination of housing-market conditions and broader measures of economic health and livability. The Fall 2026 Ranking identified the following top areas:

• Appleton, Wis.
• South Bend, Ind.
• Canton, Ohio
• Manchester, N.H.
• Lancaster, Pa.
• Waterbury, Conn.
• Reading, Pa.
• Fort Wayne, Ind.
• Rockford, Ill.
• Harrisburg, Pa.
• Springfield, Mass.
• Springfield, Mo.
• Grand Rapids, Mich.
• Portland, Maine
• Bridgeport, Conn.
• Kalamazoo, Mich.
• York, Pa.
• Hartford, Conn.
• Norwich, Conn.
• Lynchburg, Va.

At roughly 250,000 residents, Appleton, Wis., is the smallest market in the top 20, the rankers noted, yet it scores well across the ranking’s measures. Appleton’s median listing price was $404,950 in September, 1.3% higher than a year earlier and below the national median of $419,250.

Active listings more than doubled year over year to 695 homes, while homes spent 40 days on the market, about three weeks less than the national average, the rankers noted. Appleton’s 2.8% unemployment rate was also well below the 4.2% average across ranked metros, and its cost of living was roughly 8% below the national average.

WSJ and Realtor.com said that balance is visible across the top 20.

Time On Market

The markets averaged roughly 523,000 residents, compared with 1.3 million across all 200 ranked metros, and many offer access to major job centers without the costs of the largest cities. Reading and Lancaster, Pennsylvania, are near Philadelphia; Waterbury, Connecticut, is within reach of New York; and Manchester, New Hampshire, and Portland, Maine, offer proximity to Boston.

Homes in the top 20 spent an average of 41 days on the market in September. That is nearly three weeks less than the 61-day national average.

The WSJ and Realtor.com said that for many buyers, the appeal is most visible in the monthly payment.

In 15 of the top 20 markets, they noted the typical principal-and-interest payment given September prices was below the national level of $2,863, even at a 7.40% mortgage rate. Payments were as low as $1,820 in Canton, Ohio, $1,834 in Rockford, Illinois, and $2,202 in South Bend, Indiana.

The preference for value is driving strong demand, the rankers noted.

They said prices increased year over year in 11 of the 20 markets, even as the national median listing price fell 1.4% in September. They noted that buyers in these markets generally start from a lower price base, and growing inventory and more frequent price reductions may give them additional ways to manage higher borrowing costs, whether through a lower purchase price or seller concessions.

Evolving Rankings

The ranking continues to evolve, the WSJ and Realtor.com noted.

Fourteen of the top 20 markets appeared in the summer’s top 20, while six are new to the group. Bridgeport, Connecticut, made the largest move, rising 33 spots to No. 15, followed by Portland, Maine, which climbed 32 spots to No. 14 and Waterbury, Connecticut, which rose 26 spots to No. 6. Two Michigan metros, Grand Rapids and Kalamazoo, and Hartford, Connecticut, also joined the top tier.

Six summer top-20 markets dropped out, most notably Youngstown, Ohio, which dropped 40 spots, from No. 16 to No. 56.