This Mass. city has the nation’s hottest housing market, report finds

A suburban home in Peabody, where buyers seek relative affordability and proximity to Boston, Realtor.com says.Joe Viger Photography

Take that, 90210. The hottest housing market in the country is 01960.

No, that’s not the Back Bay or Beacon Hill. It’s Peabody, a perhaps overlooked suburb on the North Shore 20 miles north of downtown Boston.

So far in 2026, home listings in the city of 55,000 are the hottest in the country, according to a recent analysis by Realtor.com.

Relatively affordable single-family homes and proximity to Boston-based jobs are driving demand in Peabody’s zip code of 01960, Realtor.com said in a release Monday.

Analysts with the online real estate site said they looked at two factors: unique viewers per property on the listing website, and how quickly homes sold.

“The hottest areas are those that have the most unique viewers per listed property and fast-selling homes — a sign of limited supply,” said Realtor.com’s Snejana Farberov.

The top 10 hottest markets on Realtor.com’s list are clustered in suburbs in the northeast and Midwest, with many zip codes located outside major cities such as New York, Philadelphia, and Chicago. None of the top 10 hottest markets are in the South or West.

Also making the list: Westfield, located about 20 minutes west of Springfield, which ranked at No. 5.

During the first half of this year, typical Peabody listings attracted more than four times the national average views per home and went off the market in about 20 days, Realtor.com said.

The 01960 zip code includes Peabody, South Peabody and West Peabody — where many properties may sit on larger pieces of land, said realtor Joyce Cucchiara, a lifelong Peabody resident.

Cucchiara said many buyers choose Peabody because of its proximity to multiple highways, easing access to Boston, Cambridge, Waltham and beyond.

“Peabody is the gateway to the North Shore,” said Cucchiara said.

As of June, Peabody home sellers were asking a median price of $667,000, the site said. That’s around $50,000 more than the recent median home sale price of $614,666 in Salem for the three months ending in June, according to Redfin. In nearby Beverly and Swampscott, median home sale prices were $778,576 and $814,557, respectively, for the same time period, Redfin said.

“Peabody has greatly benefited from its close proximity to the metro’s economic engine, offering buyers a tempting mix of relative affordability, larger homes with distinctive character, and a more laid-back lifestyle,” Farberov wrote.

Cucchiara said many buyers can find Peabody properties within their budget.

“In the past year, homes have sold for $500,000 all the way up to $1.4 million,” she said, adding that a few homes even sold for under $400,000.

“They needed work, but they were great homes,” she said.

Peabody and other top markets stand out in an otherwise temperate housing market nationwide, according to Realtor.com.

During the first half of 2026, homes for sale in the 10 hottest housing markets had on average three to five times more views online than the typical listing nationwide and sold between 30 and 42 days faster than the U.S. norm, Realtor.com said.

These 10 zip codes are the hottest housing markets in the US, according to Realtor.com

1. Peabody, MA (01960). Median list price: about $600K, according to Realtor.com.
2. Montclair, NJ (07042). Median list price: $1 million
3. Sewell, NJ (08080). Median list price: $426K
4. Fairport, NY (14450). Median list price: $429K
5. Westfield, MA (01085). Median list price: $381K
6. Livonia, MI (48154). Median list price: $338K
7. Lititz, PA (17543). Median list price: $598K
8. North Haven, CT (06473). Median list price: $562K
9. New Berlin, WI (53151). Median list price: $445K
10. Wheaton, IL (60187). Median list price: $575K