It doesn't get much hotter than the Houston housing market. A new report has ranked H-Town as the 20th best real estate market among America's biggest cities right now.
WalletHub's annual study, "Best Real Estate Markets (2026)," compares the real estate markets in 300 U.S. cities based on 17 relevant metrics, such as "housing market attractiveness," home value forecasts, housing affordability, population growth, and many others. Cities were also ranked by size: large cities with over 300,000 residents; midsize cities with 150,000-300,000 residents; and small cities with fewer than 150,000 residents.
In the overall ranking of the best housing markets in America, regardless of city size, Houston ranks 90th out of all 300 cities.
WalletHub ranks Houston's real estate market No. 102 nationally, and its "affordability and economic environment" ranks 111th overall.
This is how WalletHub ranks the "health" of Houston's housing market (where No. 1 is the best and No. 150 is average):
- No. 51 – Job Growth Rate
- No. 96 – Home Price as a Percentage of Income
- No. 99 – Median Home-Price Appreciation
- No. 128 – Foreclosure Rate
- No. 159 – Share of Seriously Underwater Mortgages
- No. 172 – Percentage of Delinquent Mortgage Holders
- No. 173 – Median Days on the Market
- No. 192 – Maintenance Costs as a Percentage of Income
Despite Houston's good standing among the biggest cities in America, a separate WalletHub report claims Houston is one of the
worst cities for first-time homebuyers. Instead, Houstonians are turning to
popular ZIP codes in suburbs like Cypress and Katy, which rank among the hottest places to move to in the U.S.
Other high-performing housing markets in Texas
Two popular North Texas suburbs — Frisco and McKinney — topped WalletHub's overall list of the best real estate markets in the U.S. for 2026 at Nos. 1 and 2, respectively, and they locked in the top two spots in the midsize city ranking, too.
Frisco tops the nationwide "affordability and economic environment" category, and ranks No. 2 nationally for its real estate market.
"When you look at home prices as a percentage of income, [Frisco] is the 95th-cheapest among the 300 cities in our study," the report said. "But it’s the 11th-cheapest city for phone service and the 11th-cheapest for maintenance and energy."
Frisco boasts the highest share of houses that were built between 2010 and 2024, at nearly 47 percent, which WalletHub says is "good news for people who want all the benefits of a recently-constructed home," without having to "put in a lot of work" to renovate an older or run down home.
"If you aim to make a profit in the long run with your housing purchase, you’ll need to look beyond tangible factors like square footage and style," the report's author wrote. "Those factors certainly drive up property values. From an investor’s standpoint, though, they hold less significance than historical market trends and the economic health of residents."
Nearby Denton and Allen also made the overall top 10, respectively ranking as the 5th and 8th best real estate markets in the U.S. for 2026. Denton similarly ranked 5th in the midsize city rankings, and Allen topped the list of small cities.
The top 10 best real estate markets in America for 2026 are:
- No. 1 – Frisco, Texas
- No. 2 – McKinney, Texas
- No. 3 – Murfreesboro, Tennessee
- No. 4 – Durham, North Carolina
- No. 5 – Denton, Texas
- No. 6 – Cary, North Carolina
- No. 7 – Madison, Wisconsin
- No. 8 – Allen, Texas
- No. 9 – Charlotte, North Carolina
- No. 10 – Irvine, California
