The 10 hottest neighborhoods of 2026 are an hour outside the big city

Americans are leaving big cities in search of a more affordable cost of living, but it turns out they don’t want to be too far from the action.

According to data from Redfin, house hunters yearn for the exurbs — the happy medium area between rural and urban. Redfin analyzed ZIP codes in the 100 most populous metro areas by year-over-year growth in listing views and its Redfin Compete Score, which measures the difficulty in winning a home bid, and came up with a list of the most in-demand neighborhoods.

Every neighborhood is no more than an hour’s commute away from a major city, but still far enough away that buyers can get cheaper homes there than they could in the nearest metro area.

“That was the post-pandemic story, where people are leaving cities and trying to get into nature,” Redfin senior economist Asad Khan told Business Insider. “I think what we’re seeing now is this return to maybe not close suburbs but exurbs — suburbs that are outside major metros, or within the metro, but outside the major cities, where they have access to nature, they have access to space and affordability, but they still have that big city access that gives access to those amenities that are there.”

Khan said that in years past, Florida would have occupied a majority of the spots on the list. However, this year, only a few Florida neighborhoods made the list — though they’re ranked high.

The Midwest stole the show this time around, claiming six out of the top 10 spots.

“The Midwest got super hot in part because people just weren’t leaving the Midwest as rapidly,” Khan said. “So a lot of people who were flowing out and going down south, they basically stayed in place. That’s caused the Midwest to heat up, where a lot of that demand that would’ve been satisfied by Florida is instead just staying local in the Midwest.”

Read on to see Redfin’s hottest neighborhoods of 2026.