What goes up also goes down, and we now know which markets Zillow expects will rise and which will fall throughout the next year.
The portal recently released its latest 12-month forecast for hundreds of metro areas across the U.S., along with other predictions for the real estate market.
Zillow expects mortgage rates to remain stubborn throughout the next year, refusing to fall below 6 percent. It expects existing home sales to rise 4.3 percent in 2026, to 4.26 million.
Over the past year, 53 percent of homes lost value, Zillow said. That’s the highest share since 2012, when home values were climbing out of their Great Recession lows.
Home prices nationally could climb 1.2 percent, the portal’s economists said, with some markets climbing over 5 percent and some falling nearly 8 percent.
The forecasted home price change in hundreds of metro areas shows that Zillow expects an ongoing trend of strength in much of the Midwest and Northeast to continue, with price drops primarily concentrated throughout the Sun Belt.
There’s less doom and gloom expected than in 2025 for some markets that saw large price declines this year.
Home values fell 6.1 percent in Austin, Texas, and Tampa, Florida, 4.8 percent in Miami, 4.6 percent in Orlando, Florida, and 4 percent in Dallas compared to a year ago, Zillow researchers found.
In all, 24 of the nation’s 50 largest markets saw home prices decline by October 2025, compared to a year earlier. Zillow said it expects that number to be 12 major markets next year.
Among 894 markets across the country, Zillow is forecasting home values to fall in 214 of them, or nearly one in four markets.
