Sun Belt cities dominate 2026 best housing markets, Texas leads list

The American dream of owning a home may be getting harder to achieve in some of the country’s biggest cities, but new data suggests it remains alive and well in parts of Texas and the Sun Belt.

According to WalletHub’s 2026 Best Real Estate Markets report released Wednesday, Frisco, Texas, took the top spot and was followed by neighboring McKinney, Texas. Murfreesboro, Tennessee; Durham, North Carolina; and Denton, Texas, rounded out the top five.

Other top 10 contenders include Cary, North Carolina; Madison, Wisconsin; Allen, Texas; Charlotte, North Carolina and Irvine, California.

“Texas and other Sun Belt markets dominate the top of the ranking, highlighting the combination of housing-market strength and helpful economic conditions found in many of these cities,” WalletHub writer and analyst Chip Lupo told Fox News Digital. “These markets tend to perform well across factors such as home-price appreciation, new housing construction, building-permit activity, affordability and job growth.”

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“Nearly 47% of the housing units in Frisco, the No. 1 market overall, were built between 2010 and 2024 … McKinney, ranked No. 2, has a 40% new-home rate, the 10th-highest building-permit activity and one of the best job growth rates,” Lupo said.

Texas cities consistently ranked in the top 10 spots for the best real estate markets in America, according to new WalletHub data. (Getty Images)

“By comparison, many large coastal markets rank considerably lower overall, including New York at No. 231, Los Angeles at No. 237 and San Francisco at No. 273. Their relatively weak rankings reflect a combination of housing-market challenges and poor affordability and economic-environment scores,” he continued.

The study weighs underlying housing-market health and market trajectory more heavily than affordability alone in ranking the 300 U.S. cities, with cities needing a combination of healthy housing fundamentals and economic conditions that could support homeowners over the longer term to rank highly.

“Taxes are certainly part of the equation, but the ranking points more broadly to the combination of housing conditions and economic strength rather than taxes alone,” Lupo said.

McKinney, Texas, took the No. 2 spot for America’s best real estate markets. (Getty Images)

“By contrast, major coastal markets rank far lower. Those markets may offer high incomes and economic opportunity, but their housing costs can make it much harder for residents to translate those opportunities into homeownership. The biggest, most popular cities are on everyone’s radar,” he said, “so their housing markets have been competitive for a long time, and they continue to be. The entry point is therefore more expensive, and there might not be as much room for growth.”

“The contrast with expensive coastal cities is less about simply building more homes and more about whether housing supply can keep pace with demand. When new construction consistently falls behind population and job growth, affordability pressures become much harder to overcome,” Lupo said.

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Bourbon Street in New Orleans’ famed French Quarter neighborhood. (Getty Images)

New Orleans ranked last in the report, followed by Baltimore. Lupo said this is a “warning sign” that goes beyond home prices.

“Homeowners shouldn’t assume further deterioration is inevitable, but these rankings are a reason to be cautious,” he said. “Markets with weak housing fundamentals can experience slower home-price growth, weaker market activity and greater difficulty attracting buyers, which can make it harder for homeowners to build equity or sell quickly.”

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