Housing Markets Where Spring Starts Early

In the same manner Mother Nature rolls out the seasons unevenly across the country, housing market seasons are also local.

Trulia Chief Economist Jed Kolko lists which markets in the U.S. will wake up from their winter lull earlier than others

According to Kolko, the housing season starts earliest on Florida’s west coast, where search activity in January is 22 percent above the local average in Cape Coral-Fort Myers and 17 percent above in North Port-Sarasota-Bradenton. Kansas City is the only city not in the sunbelt that made the top 10 metros where winter home searches are above annual average.

So which markets tend to hibernate longer? Trulia’s data says that among the 100 largest metros, Cambridge-Newton-Framingham in Massachusetts share a spot on the top with Seattle, where home search activity in January and February are -5 percent relative to the local annual average.

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