House prices will plummet in 300 US housing markets

A bombshell new forecast from Zillow finds a couple of in three American housing markets heading into decline over the following 12 months — and the cities taking the toughest hits are those that appeared untouchable simply 4 years in the past.

Of the 894 housing markets Zillow tracks, prices are anticipated to fall in 309, maintain flat in simply 14 and rise in 572 by way of March 2027.

Nationally, Zillow now tasks house prices will go nowhere over that stretch — a pointy downgrade from final month’s prediction of a 0.5% achieve.

The flat nationwide quantity is the least vital half. What issues is what’s taking place beneath it.

The pandemic-era boomtowns of the Sun Belt and Gulf Coast are cratering. Overlooked mid-size cities in the Midwest and upstate New York are rising. And tens of millions of American householders are about to seek out out which facet of that divide their ZIP code sits on.

The steepest projected decline belongs to Houma, Louisiana, a metropolis about an hour southwest of New Orleans, the place prices are forecast to fall 7.0% over the following 12 months. Lake Charles, Louisiana follows at 5.6%; then Austin, Texas at 4.6%; New Orleans at 4.4%; and Shreveport at 3.6%. Denver is down 3% in the forecast. California markets from Chico to Vallejo aren’t far behind.

The Louisiana numbers are staggering however not shocking to anybody who has watched what’s occurred to the price of truly proudly owning a house there. The common house owner’s insurance coverage premium hit $10,964 in Louisiana in 2024 — and in 30 to 40% of Louisiana mortgage transactions, offers at the moment are collapsing solely due to insurance coverage prices alone.

In Houma particularly, 99% of properties face a threat of extreme flooding over the following 30 years, with that threat rising quicker than the nationwide common. Buyers have accomplished the maths and walked away.

In New Orleans, a median-priced house that price roughly $1,400 a month with 20% down and common insurance coverage in 2020 now runs $2,154 a month. A household that wanted $57,000 in annual earnings to afford that house six years in the past now wants greater than $86,000 — effectively above the metro’s median family earnings of $61,602.

No market illustrates the dimensions of the reversal extra brutally than Austin.

Between 2020 and 2022, Austin’s median house worth rocketed from $325,000 to a peak of $550,000 — a achieve of almost 70% in two years. Then got here the steepest single-year correction in the market’s recorded historical past: a 15.5% plunge in 2023, adopted by additional declines in 2024 and 2025. The metropolis, which is the capital of Texas, notoriously overbuilt housing in the course of the COVID-19 years.

The metropolis that distant staff, California transplants and Elon Musk’s Texas empire supercharged is now the slowest main housing market in the nation.

Redfin knowledge reveals Austin carrying 128% extra sellers than consumers, with properties averaging greater than 90 days available on the market. With Zillow valuing the standard Austin house at roughly $508,500, the projected further 4.6% decline would erase greater than $23,000 in worth.

Redfin chief economist Daryl Fairweather has been monitoring a historic imbalance constructing throughout the nation. In February 2026, there have been roughly 630,000 extra house sellers than consumers — the most important hole Redfin has recorded because it started protecting that knowledge in 2013. The vendor surplus hit 46.3%, up sharply from 29.8% only a 12 months earlier.

Prices are falling, she mentioned, in locations “where sellers outnumber buyers.”

In the South, builders flooded the zone with new provide in the course of the pandemic and now these properties sit unsold whereas consumers are crushed by mortgage charges, hovering insurance coverage premiums and property taxes that spiked alongside pandemic-era valuations.

While the Sun Belt bleeds, a string of unglamorous, reasonably priced cities throughout the Northeast and Midwest are quietly changing into the most well liked housing markets in the nation.

Syracuse, New York leads the complete nation in Zillow’s forecast with a projected 5.0% achieve. That metropolis is adopted by Rockford, Illinois and Atlantic City, each at 4.5%. Meanwhile, additionally in Rust Belt New York, there’s Rochester at 4.0% and Utica at 3.5%.

Syracuse is being reworked by one thing Austin briefly had earlier than shedding it — a real, sturdy financial catalyst.

Micron Technology’s deliberate semiconductor megafab in Central New York is anticipated to convey greater than 100,000 staff incomes six figures into the area. Syracuse house prices had been already up 27.9% year-over-year as of March 2026, promoting for a median of $179,000 — a fraction of what a purchaser would pay in Austin or Denver right this moment.

Rockford, Illinois — a producing metropolis of about 147,000 folks anchored by employers together with Collins Aerospace, Stellantis and UPS — tells an identical story.

Despite a rolling median worth now above $236,000, Rockford stays almost 65% ​​cheaper than the nationwide median, and town has drawn consumers from Chicago suburbs and throughout the nation on the lookout for extra homes for his or her cash.

“While buyers are priced out of the market in various major cities, Rockford’s affordability is still a strength,” Conor Brown, CEO of the NorthWest Illinois Alliance of Realtors instructed native station WTVO Rockford. “Our prices are reasonable, and that continues to draw buyers from the Chicago suburbs and around the country.”