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Three Arkansas Cities Among Healthiest Housing Markets

Submitted by Cheryl Bourland on June 30, 2015 - 12:36pm

Nationwide has just released its latest Leading Index of Healthy Housing Markets (LIHHM) report, which examines the near-term outlook for the housing markets of 400 metropolitan areas across the country. The report analyzes employment, demographics, mortgage market, and house price data for each quarter in order to assign a score assessing the health of each market. Scores range from 75 to 125, with scores above 100 indicating more positive markets and scores below 100 indicating more negative markets. According to the new report, several cities in Arkansas can boast having housing markets among the healthiest in the nation!

 

In fact, Arkansas occupies three of the top ten healthiest housing markets overall, including Jonesboro at #3, Little Rock-Conway at #5, and Fort Smith at #9. Here is the full top ten list:

  1. Williamsport, PA
  2. Springfield, OH
  3. Jonesboro, AR
  4. Sebastian-Vero Beach, FL
  5. Little Rock-Conway, AR
  6. Dayton, OH
  7. Cincinnati, OH-KY
  8. Danville, IL
  9. Fort Smith, AR-OK
  10. Greensboro-High Point, NC

Nationally, the overall average score for all markets was 109.4, which was only a fraction of a point below the all-time highest value attained last quarter (data goes back to 2001). This indicates that the national housing market is likely to continue with the growth seen in recent months. Only eight metropolitan areas registered negative outlook scores (below 100) on the report, 75% of which were located in either Texas or Louisiana. Here is the list of the ten least healthy housing markets out of the 400 metropolitan areas examined:

  1. Hammond, LA
  2. Bismarck, ND
  3. Victoria, TX
  4. New Orleans-Metairie, LA
  5. Lafayette, LA
  6. Weirton-Steubenville, WV-OH
  7. Dallas-Plano-Irving, TX
  8. Houma-Thibodaux, LA
  9. Gainesville, GA
  10. Watertown-Fort Drum, NY

The driving force behind Louisiana's low ratings was the recent drop in oil prices, while Texas has suffered from unhealthy increases in home prices. However, even the lowest scores in the report only qualified as weakly negative.

 

Source: Nationwide’s Health of Housing Markets Report