The Midwest Is Having a Housing Boom. The Coverage Is All About the Northeast.
July 17, 2026 · Analysis
A Fortune report this month, built on NAR and Realtor.com data, drew a clean line through the housing market: prices down 7.3% in the West since the 2022 peak, down 3.5% in the South, up 10% in the Midwest, up 12.6% in the Northeast. The framing that followed put the Northeast at the center of the story. It's the biggest number, and the biggest number gets the headline.
We checked that framing against Sialim's own metro-level data, 894 US metros tracked with observed Zillow home values through June 2026, and the Northeast holds up. Metro for metro, though, it isn't the whole story. The Midwest is rising just as fast at the top, and far more broadly underneath it.
Start with scale. Among the country's 100 largest metros, Northeast and Midwest markets are posting almost identical gains: the Northeast's top 16 metros are up 3.8% year over year on average, the Midwest's top 17 are up 3.4%. Statistically, that's a tie. Chicago is up 4.8%. Milwaukee is up 5.8%. Cleveland, Akron, and Grand Rapids are all in what Sialim's model classifies as "overheating" territory, alongside nine Northeast metros including New York, Buffalo, and Hartford.
The gap opens once you stop looking only at the big cities. Sialim tracks 273 Midwest metros total, from Chicago down to towns most national coverage never mentions. Of those 273, 81% are rising at 3% or more year over year. The Northeast has 89 metros in its data set; 64% clear that same bar. The South manages 26%. The West, 21%.
That's the actual story a regional average can't show: the Northeast's boom is real but concentrated in a run of well-known metros. The Midwest's boom runs through nearly the entire region, small towns included, and still gets a fraction of the coverage.
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The numbers behind the story
| Region | Top-100 metros, avg YoY | Metros up 3%+ YoY | 12-month forecast avg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Midwest | +3.4% | 221 of 273 (81%) | +2.3% |
| Northeast | +3.8% | 57 of 89 (64%) | +2.8% |
| South | +0.1% | 93 of 358 (26%) | -0.7% |
| West | +0.5% | 36 of 174 (21%) | -0.4% |
Sialim, observed Zillow ZHVI through June 2026. Regional grouping follows US Census Bureau definitions. "Overheating" and other regime labels are Sialim's own classification, not NAR's or Zillow's.
The West story needs its own asterisk
The "West is falling" half of the Fortune piece needs one too. Denver is down 1.9% year over year. Phoenix is down 0.6%. Tucson, Las Vegas, and Stockton are all negative as well. But Los Angeles is up 1.5%. San Francisco is up 1.0%. San Diego is essentially flat, down 0.3%. The decline is real, but it's concentrated inland and in the Mountain West, not on the coast most people picture when they hear "the West is falling."
Where the South is headed next
One more piece the backward-looking regional data can't offer: where this goes next. Sialim's forecasts run 12 months forward from observed prices, and the South is the region to watch. Its year-over-year number is still positive, up 0.1% on average across the region's top-100 metros. Its 12-month forecast average is already negative, down 0.7%. Austin leads the reversal, down 6.0% year over year and forecast to keep falling at close to the same pace. The South's boom, in other words, is already turning before the trailing numbers show it.
What this means if you're watching a Midwest metro
If you own or are shopping in a Midwest metro outside the handful that make national news, this data says you're not watching an outlier. You're watching the median.
Is your metro one of them? Look up your city's number →
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Data: Zillow ZHVI, via Zillow Research. Regional grouping follows US Census Bureau definitions. Forecasts are model output, not investment advice.