TWINSBURG, Ohio — In a year that saw 8% mortgage rates, low inventory and still plenty of pent-up demand, Twinsburg and Stow found themselves as two of the most popular real estate markets nationwide in 2023 for those surfing Zillow, the popular real estate marketplace.
According to Zillow, the two cities beat out nearly 2,300 other U.S. cities.
The top 10 most popular markets on Zillow for 2023:
- West Chester, Pennsylvania
- Nashua, New Hampshire
- Manchester, New Hampshire
- Wethersfield, Connecticut
- West Hartford, Connecticut
- Stow, Ohio
- Middletown, Connecticut
- Twinsburg, Ohio
- Newington, Connecticut
- Concord, New Hampshire
"We look at browsing activity, how many people are looking in these places," Nicole Bachaud, Zillow senior economist, explained. "We look at things like appreciation, listings activity, how quickly things go pending, the number of sales that happen. We use a whole host of metrics to create the index for our popular markets list every year."
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Bachaud told News 5 that "Zillow surfers" tended to gravitate toward smaller cities in 2023 amid higher home prices and mortgage rates.
"Affordability is still top of mind for most folks in the housing market right now," she said. "We're seeing affordable housing markets as the kind of top runners for where people are looking to live."
For area realtor Barry Brizes, homes still move quickly in Stow.
Even during the holidays, he’s seeing the popular parts of Summit County staying hot and he doesn’t expect that to change heading into 2024.
"[Homes here] were getting top dollar quickly and multiple offers," he said. "Once COVID-19 hit and people were able to work from homes, they wanted to move back to the communities where their families were so they didn’t have to do all the traveling."
While Twinsburg and Stow made the top ten most popular markets in 2023, Cuyahoga Falls, North Canton and Vermilion all made the top 20.
Additionally, Vermilion was named the most popular vacation town in the country on Zillow in 2023, and Kent took home top honors for the most popular college town.
