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San Francisco: DenisTangneyJr/iStock

 

Now that we've digested our Thanksgiving turkey, it's time for the realtor.com® economic data team to digest our site's preliminary data for November. As usual for this time of year, it looks like things are slowing down as we head into the holiday season, with a stable median list price and a declining number of homes on the market.

"Sales and demand always slow down in the fall as a result of school, weather, and the holidays," said Jonathan Smoke, chief economist of realtor.com.

"We are seeing inventory decline at a normal pace, taking into account that it peaked later in the year this year," he noted. "But we're also seeing prices remain firm and age of inventory remain lower than you would typically see, which reflects more demand than normal."

Listing inventory for November looks like it will end down 2% compared with October. Homes are also taking a longer time to sell, which is typical as winter rolls through most markets, but at a pace that's still faster than this time last year. The median age of inventory is now 84 days, which is 3% slower than October 2015 but 9% faster than November 2014.

The median listing price is expected to remain fairly constant, down just 1% from October to $230,000 in November, but that would still represent an increase of 7% year over year.

Our data team ranked the country's 300 largest markets in terms of housing supply (measured by days on market) and demand (measured by listing views on our site) to come up with the top 20 hottest markets in the U.S. for this month.

With temperatures dropping, California increased its dominance of the list: 12 of the top 20 markets are in the booming West Coast state.

"We are starting to see more movement [in the ranking] in the hottest markets as the season brings material declines in demand in many markets," Smoke said. "However, California remains hot as pent-up demand continues to drive activity in very supply-constrained markets."

The hot list

  1. San Francisco, CA
  2. Vallejo, CA
  3. Denver, CO
  4. San Jose, CA
  5. Dallas, TX
  6. San Diego, CA
  7. Sacramento, CA
  8. Santa Rosa, CA
  9. Oxnard, CA
  10. Stockton, CA
  11. Nashville, TN
  12. Los Angeles, CA
  13. Yuba City, CA
  14. Detroit, MI
  15. Boulder, CO
  16. Palm Bay, FL
  17. Santa Cruz, CA
  18. Boston, MA
  19. Modesto, CA
  20. Columbus, OH