Get ready to enter a bidding war in these 10 housing markets this year

Hartford, Connecticut, skyline. — The Northeast made up more than half of the top 10 hottest metros for 2026. Bruce Peter Morin/Getty Images

Competition is often inevitable when buying a home.

While some are moving to the Sun Belt and Snow Belt seeking more affordable places to settle down, many other markets in the country remain expensive precisely because they’re in demand.

Zillow released its predictions for the hottest markets going into 2026 based on home price growth and housing market competition, and Northeastern metros appear on the list more than any other region. No Sun Belt cities made the list at all.

“Markets are hotter where supply is more constrained,” Zillow Chief Economist Mischa Fisher told Business Insider. “That’s why you see that very pronounced cluster in the Northeast, where it can take longer to build, or it can be harder to build, or it can be more costly to build. Whereas in the Sun Belt, if you look at the inventory available compared to demand, home prices are, in many of those markets, down year-over-year.”

What Zillow defines as “hot” doesn’t just measure where homes are selling the fastest, but also how often sellers are forced to cut prices, how many homes sell over the asking price, and where demand outpaces supply.

Some of the cities on the list, like San Jose, California, have a high Zillow Home Value Index ($1,558,466), but finished in the top 10 mainly because of other high-performing metrics.

According to Zillow, 55.6% of sales in San Jose, California, were over the list price as of November 2025 due to an inventory drop. “The inventory is still strained in those areas, so you still have enough to maintain a lot of competition among buyers there,” Fisher said.

“Whether it’s a lower home value index, like in Hartford, Connecticut, or a higher one, like in San Jose, California, in both cases, building is not particularly easy. So if that’s where people want to be, you’re going to be supply constrained, and you’re going to see demand among buyers be pretty pronounced.”

Affordability remains a key factor for most when deciding where to live, but other elements also drive those decisions.

Zillow analyzed the nation’s 50 most populous metros to determine which ones were the most in-demand. Here are the top 10 metros that Zillow predicts to be in high demand in 2026.

10. Milwaukee, WI