DALLAS — This story was originally published by our content partners at the Dallas Business Journal. Read the original version here.
The Las Colinas area of Irving and neighborhoods in the Park Cities of Dallas rank among the hottest housing markets in North Texas.
Dallas Business Journal, in coordination with the wider Business Journals network, has a new way to measure residential real estate momentum. The inaugural hottest housing markets ranking is based on third-quarter listing and sales data from Intercontinental Exchange Inc.
The ranking is intended to emphasize sales and pricing momentum in each ZIP code, using a weighted formula that includes quarterly and year-over-year comparisons. Only ZIP codes with complete data were included in the analysis.
Using those criteria, Irving's 75038 ZIP code ranked No. 1 in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. The area includes part of Las Colinas, a business and entertainment hub that boasts the headquarters of several of the nation's largest corporations.
The average home sale price topped $720,000 in the area and homes were spending an average of 73 days on the market, according to the Business Journals analysis.
Lake Highlands
The Lake Highlands ZIP code 75238 in northeast Dallas was No. 2. Homes there are selling for an average of $720,872 and spending an average of 58 days on the market.
Frisco
Frisco's 75033, in the Denton County part of the city, was No. 3. The average home had a sale price of $900,768 and spent about 100 days on the market.
The ZIP codes that follow the top three can be found in Highland Park, University Park, Preston Hollow, Southlake, Frisco, Plano and beyond. Here's a look at the next 22 hottest markets, along with the average sales price and average days on the market for listings sold in each ZIP:
4. Dallas’ 75220, including part of Preston Hollow — $1,305,009; 103 DOM
5. 75205, the primary ZIP code for Highland Park and part of University Park — $2,603,379; 75 days
6. Weatherford’s 76088 (Parker County) — $529,439; 99 days
7. Azle's 76020 (Tarrant County) — $415,701; 88 days
8. Dallas' 75230, which includes part of Preston Hollow — $1,376,237; 75 days
9. Lake Dallas' 75065 (Denton County) — $464,715; 84 days
10. Irving’s 75062 — $414,871; 57 days
11. Southlake’s 76092 — $1,594,398; 71 days
12. Plano’s 75075 — $500,625; 50 days
13. Weatherford’s 76085 — $480,316; 102 days
14. Irving’s 75039 — $651,828; 81 days
15. Flower Mound’s 75022 — $1,040,955; 71 days
16. Arlington’s 76005 — $588,770; 74 days
17. Weatherford’s 76087 — $516,491; 96 days
18. Denton’s 76205 — $436,813, 81 days
19. Grapevine’s 76051 — $616,214; 56 days
20. Rhome’s 76078 (Wise County)— $428,139; 126 days
21. Sanger’s 76266 (Denton County) — $440,298; 99 days
22. Fort Worth’s 76109 — $760,558; 63 days
23. Dallas’ 75218 — $690,104; 58 days
24. Lewisville's 75077 — $628,650; 60 days
25. Red Oak's 75154 — $430,094; 100 days.
While those are some impressive numbers, a little north of DFW in the Texoma region, the 75491 ZIP in the small community of Whitewright actually placed even higher than Irving's 75038. In fact, it was No. 1 in the state and No. 23 in the entire country.
Homes sold in Whitewright had an average sales price of more than $535,000 and spent an average of just 15 days on the market.
The 75491 housing market is quite small: the ZIP saw only 20 new listings last quarter. But The Business Journals analysis places extra weight on how prices are changing. And in Q3, the average sales price was up 58% from the same quarter in 2023 and a staggering 193% from 2019.
Whitewright is in the Sherman-Denison metro area. It's about 60 miles north of Dallas and 18 miles southeast of Sherman, a boomtown with two major semiconductor plants under construction.
America's hottest housing markets
Home sales have flatlined nationally in recent months as high mortgage rates, combined with continued home-price appreciation, have sidelined many potential buyers and discouraged would-be sellers.
Despite those transactional challenges, plenty of areas are still seeing stiff competition.
ZIP code 81144 in Monte Vista, Colorado, ranked as The Business Journals’ hottest housing market for the third quarter. The average home sale price was $565,818, 87% more than the national average listing price of $303,055. Homes there spent an average 123 days on the market last quarter.
A community of just over 4,000 residents adjacent to the Sangre de Christo and San Juan mountains, Colorado's 81144 is an outlier among the ZIP codes that topped The Business Journals’ hottest housing markets ranking.
Eight of the top 10 ZIP codes for the third quarter are in states along the East Coast, from Maine to Florida, including two ZIP codes in Pennsylvania: Bethlehem's 18015 and Easton's 18042.
Four ZIP codes from Maine were among the nation’s top 20, more than any other state. Waldoboro's 04572 came in fourth in the nation, and Union's 04862 ranked 14th. The two other high-ranking ZIP codes from Maine — Harrison's 04040 and Ogunquit's 03907 — are both within the Portland metro area.
Among The Business Journals’ top 10 ZIP codes, the average home sold for $1.2 million after spending 98 days on the market.
In those 10 ZIP codes, home prices on average more than doubled from 2019 to 2024, surging 154%.
Home prices on the rise across US
Home prices to continue to rise despite weaker buying activity nationally. The median existing-home price in September was $404,500, up 3% from the same time a year ago, according to data from the National Association of Realtors.
Existing-home sales dropped 1% on a monthly basis at the national level in September, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.84 million, according to NAR data. Sales in September were down 3.5% from the same month a year ago.
While there's hope the Federal Reserve's recent rate cut — and anticipated future cuts — will unlock more sales activity, experts have warned there are no guarantees that mortgage rates will continue to fall.
That means the "lock-in effect," which is one of several factors that have kept would-be sellers from listing their homes, could linger well into 2025.
