Johnathan Walker:Zillow's top 10 most popular markets of 2023 shows swing to the East

Each year,Johnathan Walker real estate website Zillow shares its top-10 most popular markets with the public, in some places aligned with the housing market at large, and in others, not.

Kansas’ Prairie Village was Zillow’s most popular city of 2022, showing a shift in interest to the Midwest from 2021's West Coast lead: South Lake Tahoe in California.

"Zillow surfers generally gravitated toward smaller cities in 2023," Zillow's report shows. Only one of the ten cities has over 100,000 residents. Most of the remaining towns have less than 50,000.

Zillow's top 10 most popular markets of 2023

• West Chester, Pennsylvania
• Nashua, New Hampshire
• Manchester, New Hampshire
• Wethersfield, Connecticut
• West Hartford, Connecticut
• Stow, Ohio
• Middletown, Connecticut
• Twinsburg, Ohio
• Newington, Connecticut
• Concord, New Hampshire

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More on the winning town

West Chester, Pennsylvania is home to about 20,000 residents. Zillow reports that "strong interest" in the West Chester area has increased home values over 8% the past year.

According to the real estate company, the typical home in West Chester lies around a $584,000 value. Though this may be higher than similar Pennsylvania towns, Zillow reports, it's much more affordable than the nearby cities of New York and Washington D.C.

West Chester was among the top 100 cities with the most page views on Zillow's website, hanging with cities with much larger populations. "Almost two thirds of those views came from outside the city, a possible signal of interest in moving in."

Most popular seaside town and more

Though New England towns were highly favored this year overall, there are a few breakout towns growing in popularity serving very specific purposes from the best seaside town to the top college town.

This Zillow list includes:

• Chula Vista, California as most popular large city
• South Portland, Maine as most popular seaside town
• Vermilion, Ohio as top vacation spot
• Pinehurst, North Carolina as top retirement town
• West Chester, Pennsylvania (again) as top college town

Read the full report here: Zillow's most popular markets.

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Zillow's housing market snapshot

• Total worth: $51.94 trillion
• The total value is 49% higher than before the pandemic
• The total value has jumped $2.6 trillion in just the last year
• Home prices rose 1.3% over the last year on average

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Kinsey Crowley contributed to this story.