As the weather warms up and the first flowers bloom, home buyers start perking up, too. Spring is traditionally the start of the busiest home-buying season of the year, which extends into summer. And while the coronavirus pandemic completely upended last year’s market, it looks like buyers are back now—and more motivated than ever—according to realtor.com data.
Each month, the realtor.com economic data team ranks the hottest U.S. markets for real estate—those metros where homes are selling fastest and where buyers are clicking up a storm on listings. And whereas last March real estate activity ground to a halt, last month things appeared back to their seasonal norm, with home-buying activity spurred by the eagerness of long-frustrated buyers who have more spending power thanks to relatively low mortgage rates.
“One of the things we saw in 2020 is that a lot of people had to put their home-buying dreams on pause,” says Nicolas Bedo, economic research analyst for realtor.com. “As 2021 home buying is starting back up again, we are seeing people return to those locations again.”
Case in point: In March, the top market was Manchester, NH, followed by neighboring metro Concord. And guess which market was also No. 1 at this time last year? Manchester!
“It seems like people are picking up again exactly where they left off,” Bedo says.
The largest city in New Hampshire, Manchester (whose metro area includes Nashua) is about 50 miles from Boston, while Concord is just a little farther up Interstate Highway 93, meaning residents of those cities could commute to Beantown in about an hour. Plus, New Hampshire’s beaches and ski areas are also within easy driving distance.
