It’s a height-of-summer tradition: The U.S. housing market tends to peak in July or August. And while demand this year remains strong, a preliminary analysis of our site’s data for July shows that housing inventory—homes available for sale—is finally starting to catch up. Sort of.
“We are now entering the time of the year when both inventory and demand typically reach their peak,” said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of realtor.com®. “The dog days of summer slow down the pace of activity, just as the school year creeps closer.
“This year we’re seeing inventory continue to grow in July, albeit at a slower pace than this spring,” he continued. “And while demand overall is strong, the trend in median days on market is suggesting that the market is finding more of a balance, which bodes well for more moderate price appreciation in the months ahead.”
The median number of days on market is a metric used to assess how quickly homes are selling. It is an indicator of housing supply, or inventory.
Based on data for the first three weeks of July, the median list price increased to $234,000, up 7% year over year and 1% over June. Median days on market increased to 69 days, down 7% year over year but up 5% month over month. Housing supply usually peaks in July or August as families rush to close before the school year begins.


Meanwhile, traffic and searches on realtor.com continued to set new highs in July, showing that there is still strong demand for homes.
As they do every month, Smoke and his team reviewed our data to identify the 20 hottest medium-size to large markets in the country—where there’s plenty of demand by buyers (as shown by listing views) and homes are moving fast (as shown by days on market).
On average, these markets receive 1.5 to three times the number of views per listing compared with that of the rest of the nation, and inventory is moving 24 to 41 days more quickly. They have also seen days on market drop by a combined average of 14% year over year.
“These hottest markets are the best in the country from both a supply and demand perspective,” Smoke said. “Sellers are seeing listings move much more quickly than the rest of the country and at an accelerating pace from just last month. Meanwhile, these markets are clearly attractive to buyers as the listings in these markets are viewed as much as three times more often than the national average.”
So here’s the list of the top cities in our analysis. Note that the markets encompass adjoining metro areas—San Francisco, for example, also includes Oakland and Hayward.

  1. San Francisco, CA
  2. Denver, CO
  3. Dallas, TX
  4. Vallejo, CA
  5. Santa Rosa, CA
  6. San Jose, CA
  7. Midland, TX
  8. San Diego, CA
  9. Ann Arbor, MI
  10. Santa Cruz, CA
  11. Detroit, MI
  12. Sacramento, CA
  13. Stockton, CA
  14. Yuba City, CA
  15. Columbus, OH
  16. Austin, TX
  17. Los Angeles, CA
  18. Oxnard, CA
  19. San Antonio, TX
  20. Fort Wayne, IN