It’s a summer scorcher in the New England housing market

Across the country, real estate industry observers are discussing a possible shift to a buyer’s market.

“On the whole, the national market has gone back to balanced,” says Kara Ng, a senior economist at Zillow. “We’ve seen sellers return to the market in bigger numbers than buyers this year and sales in many parts of the U.S. have been sluggish.”

But housing markets across New England appear to be bucking the trend. Metro areas from all over the region are currently topping the charts as some of the nation’s hottest housing markets.

Six top New England markets

Realtor.com listed six New England metros in its top-10 hottest markets for June 2025, with Springfield, Mass. taking top honors, followed by Hartford, Conn., with two New Hampshire cities, Concord and Manchester, rounding out the top-5. 

Data from Altos shows similar trends. As of July 24, the Boston-Cambridge-Quincy, MA-NH market had the highest Altos Market Action Index score in the country at 55.90, while the Providence-New Bedford-Fall River, RI-MA market ranked second at 51.63. The Bridgeport-Stamford-Norwalk, CT metro also made it into the top-10, coming in at No. 7 with a Market Action Index score of 48.40. Altos considers any score over 30 to be a seller’s market. 

The Altos Market Action Index (MAI) determines whether a local area’s market is favorable to buyers to sellers.

In contrast, pandemic homebuying hotspots have seen their housing markets weaken significantly. For example, in Phoenix, the market action index score has fallen from a high of 100 in April 2022 to just 36, while Miami dropped from a pandemic-era high of 68 to 31, and Austin dropped from 100 to 31, according to Altos.

In addition to strong market action index scores, these three New England metros also have low median days on market with Boston and Providence coming in at 35 days, and Bridgeport at 42 days.

“The median days to pending is among the fastest in the country in New England,” Ng said. “It is six days in Hartford, which is the No. 2 fastest in the country, eight days in Boston, which is No. 8 and 11 days in Providence, which is tied for No. 15 — homes are going fast.”

Mike Simonsen, the founder of Altos and Compass’s chief economist, attributes the relative strength of the New England market to what he is calling “the great stay.” 

“We are not leaving our jobs — if I got a good gig during the pandemic, I’m not giving it up — and we’re not moving,” Simonsen said. “I call it the great stay because we are staying in our houses, we are staying in our towns, we’re staying in our jobs and we are moving significantly less than we used to.” 

In his data analysis, Simonsen has found that over the last decade there has been a lot of North to South migration with people moving from New England to places like Florida in Texas. However, over the last three years, between inflation and rising insurance costs, it has become much more expensive to make these big moves.

“We are no longer selling our home in Connecticut to buy in Florida,” Simonsen said. “You can see that in the inventory numbers — inventory in Florida is much higher than it was and inventory in Connecticut is still well below its pre-pandemic level.” 

Tight inventory = hot market

Although others may not have the same “great stay” theory as Simonsen, they agree that the tight inventory, while a challenge, has helped keep the market hotter than in other parts of the country.

“We’ve been in a declining inventory market for 10 to 12 years,” Andy Smith, the broker-owner of New Hampshire-based Badger Peabody & Smith Realty, said. “We have never really had an excess of inventory.” 

Both Smith and Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather say the constrained inventory is due to the lack of overbuilding. 

“The parts of the country where prices are falling the most are places that had a lot of new construction during the pandemic that is still just coming online now,” Fairweather said. “That means there are a lot of new condos and homes in places like Miami bringing down prices. New England didn’t have a huge pandemic construction boom and there is still demand for housing even though mortgage rates have gone up, so with the really limited supply, home values are still going up.” 

Seasonality impacts New England’s inventory

Anthony Lamacchia, the broker-owner of Lamacchia Realty, also feels the strong seasonality of the New England housing market impacts the region’s inventory level.

“Becuase of the weather, most people take their homes off the market around the holidays and wait until late spring to relist. That has a huge impact on valuation because every year there is somewhat of a reset in the inventory level,” Lamacchia said. 

In addition to the tight inventory, demand from buyers throughout the region has remained strong despite uncertain economic conditions and higher interest rates. Local real estate professionals attribute the strong demand to a variety of factors.

“The northeast in general has benefited from an illusion of safety — we don’t have forest fires or mudslides or big earthquakes, and we have plenty of water to drink,” Smith said. “Additionally, in New Hampshire, people see it as an economic safe haven because it is business friendly and we have some of the lowest taxes in the country. We are also seeing a lot of job growth with life sciences and technology sectors.”

Down in Connecticut, Kamil Andrukiewicz, the broker-owner of the New Britain, CT-based New Haus Group, is seeing this in action.

“I’m actually seeing a lot of people come back up North from Florida and Texas and even some buyers from California,” Andrukiewicz said. “It is a combination of it maybe being too hot in those places, or there weren’t enough jobs or the schools weren’t as good as they had hoped, and here we do have that nice weather, lots of jobs and great schools.”

Although local real estate professionals say current market conditions are slower than they were a year ago, for now, this strong demand and tight inventory is keeping the New England housing market in the hot seat.