Checking the Health of Rockford’s Real Estate Market

With home sales recently falling to their lowest level this year, the personal-finance website WalletHub conducted an in-depth analysis of 2017’s Best Real-Estate Markets. And, while things do look a lot better than they did during the Great Recession, many markets, including the Rockford area, have a long road ahead.

There are a lot of variables that go into determining why some real estate markets are light-years ahead of others; here's what the numbers-crunchers at WalletHub looked at:

To determine the best local real-estate markets in the U.S., WalletHub’s analysts compared 300 cities of varying sizes across 21 key indicators of housing-market attractiveness and economic strength. Our data set ranges from median home-price appreciation to home sales turnover rate to job growth.

Before we break down the Rockford area's numbers, let's take a look at the 5 best real estate markets in the U.S., followed by the 5 worst:

1) Frisco, TX

2) McKinney, TX

3) Allen, TX

4) Cary, NC

5) Richardson, TX

Texas has four of the five best real estate markets in the nation, and 5 of the top 10. Now, the 5 worst:

296) Bridgeport, CT

297) Miami Beach, FL

298) Elizabeth, NJ

299) Paterson, NJ

300) Newark, NJ

As for Rockford, we come in at #277 in the overall list of 300 cities. Since Rockford fits the description for a "medium sized" city in WalletHub's list, our number on the medium-sized city list is #92 out of 98 cities.

Health of Rockford’s Real-Estate Market (1=Best; 150=Avg.):
261st – % of Homes with Negative Equity
224th – Avg. Days Until Sale
266th – Median Home-Price Appreciation
280th – Job Growth Rate
254th – Foreclosure Rate
215th – % of Delinquent Mortgage Holders
284th – Number of Unsold Homes Owned by Banks (REOs)
295th – Population Growth Rate
Rockford ranks 277th overall and 92nd among midsize cities.