Strongest markets right now
Set to outperform
Forecast price growth per year over the next 10 years.
Effective date: October 11, 2026.
Nicholas Friedman ("we", "us") runs the World Housing Index at worldhousingindex.com (the "Site"). This policy explains what we collect, why, and the choices you have. Questions: hello@worldhousingindex.com.
You give us - Your email address if you sign up for the monthly Market Movers report or alerts. - Your followed markets (the countries, metros, counties or regions you choose to follow), if you include them when you sign up. - Your account, if you sign in: your email address, and the "My Move" items you save so they're available on any device: saved cities and ZIP codes, your notes, move date, checklist progress, workplace locations you set in move guides, saved screener filters and followed markets. - Purchases, if you buy Pro or a Move Report: your plan, renewal date and purchase amounts. Payments are handled by Stripe; we never see or store your card number. - Your alert settings, if you turn on alerts: whether you want the weekly email, and any mortgage-rate levels you choose. We also record when we last emailed you, so we don't send the same alert twice.
Collected automatically - Aggregate traffic statistics from Cloudflare Web Analytics: pages viewed, referring site, country, browser and device type. It does not use cookies and does not track you across other websites. - Security logs kept by our hosting provider, Cloudflare, to deliver the Site and protect it from abuse. These include IP addresses, which Cloudflare retains for a short period under its own policy.
whi_s keeps you signed in, and whi_in only tells the page that you are. They are strictly necessary for your account and aren't used for tracking.Stored only on your device - Your settings (light or dark theme), the markets you follow, your quiz answers and your Move Planner answers (occupation, salary, priorities and filters) are kept in your browser's local storage, or in the page address if you share a result. We cannot see them unless you send them to us by signing up.
Workplace address lookups (move guides) - If you type a workplace address into a move guide, it is sent through our server to the US Census Bureau's public geocoder to find its location on the map. We do not store the address or link it to you. Cloudflare may keep the lookup result in its cache for up to a day so repeat lookups are fast. - The workplace location you set is saved with your My Move items: in your browser, and in your account if you're signed in.
Ask the Index (AI assistant) - What's sent. When you use the assistant, your messages, the answers so far, and the site data it looks up are sent through our server to Anthropic (the AI provider) to generate a reply. Don't include sensitive personal details in your questions. - What we keep. We don't store your conversations. Your browser keeps your recent chat on your device so you can pick it up later; "New chat" clears it. To enforce daily limits we count requests per day against a one-way hash of your IP address, and delete those counts after 3 days. - What Anthropic keeps. Anthropic processes the messages under its commercial terms and does not use them to train its models by default.
Maps - Move-guide maps load map tiles from OpenFreeMap and the map software from unpkg. Like any website, those services receive your IP address and browser details when your browser requests the files. We send them nothing else.
We do not collect your name, home address, card details, or any sensitive personal information. We do not knowingly collect information from children under 16.
We do not sell or rent your personal information, we do not share it for advertising, and we do not use it to make decisions that have legal or similarly significant effects on you.
Legal bases (if you are in the UK, EEA or Switzerland): - Consent for email sign-ups. You can withdraw it at any time. - Contract for your account, saved items and purchases. - Legitimate interests for security and aggregate analytics.
| Provider | What it does | Where |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare, Inc. | Hosting, security, database for sign-ups, cookieless analytics | Global network |
| Buttondown | Sends the newsletter and manages unsubscribes | United States |
| Resend (Plus Five Five, Inc.) | Sends sign-in, alert and confirmation emails | United States |
| Stripe, Inc. | Processes payments and manages subscriptions | United States |
| GitHub, Inc. | Runs the scheduled job that prepares and sends alert emails | United States |
| US Census Bureau | Looks up workplace addresses you type into a move guide (not stored) | United States |
| Anthropic, PBC | Generates Ask the Index (AI assistant) replies (conversations not stored by us) | United States |
These providers may process data outside your country. Where required, transfers rely on standard contractual clauses or an equivalent safeguard.
The Site does not set advertising or tracking cookies. If you sign in, it sets two strictly necessary cookies (whi_s and whi_in) to keep you signed in. Your theme, followed markets, My Move items and Move Planner answers are kept in local storage on your device, which is necessary for those features to work. Stripe sets its own cookies on its checkout and billing pages, under its privacy policy. If we add any tracking technology later, we will update this policy and ask for consent where the law requires it.
We will post any changes here and update the effective date. Significant changes will also be announced by email to subscribers.
Nicholas Friedman · hello@worldhousingindex.com
Forecast price growth per year over the next 10 years.
Who's set to outperform over 1, 5 and 10 years. Model forecasts, tested on years they never saw.
A metro's score combines the scores of its ranked counties.
Every market is measured the same way within its layer, using only public data, so any score can be traced back to its inputs. There are three layers: countries, regions within a country, and US counties.
Data comes from central banks, statistics offices and public research sources: BIS, OECD, IMF and World Bank for countries, national statistics offices for regions, and 18 sources for US counties. Every source and period is listed below.
Each measure becomes 0–100 against its peers (countries against countries, UK areas against UK areas, US counties against US counties), where 50 is the average. Extreme values are trimmed, and measures where lower is better are flipped.
Measures are combined with the weights below. If a market is missing one, its weight is shared across the rest.
A market is ranked when at least 70% of its score's weight is observed (and, for US counties, 25,000+ residents).
Scored against other regions in the same country, so a 60 in the UK and a 60 in Canada are not directly comparable.
The deepest layer. Hover the bar to see each measure.
Counties are also ranked against markets of similar size.
250,000+ residents, a typical home value of $400k or more, and 500+ sales a month.
Any one of: 75,000+ residents, a typical home value of $250k or more, or 150+ sales a month.
Everything else with 25,000+ residents.
All sources are free and public, and each updates on its own schedule. Periods shown are what the current scores use.
| Source | What it measures here | Data period | Licence |
|---|
| Source | What it measures here | Data period | Published |
|---|
The index is a working model. These are its known limits.
The backtest covers seven years (2019-2025), including the pandemic boom and the 2022 rate shock. It shows the score ranked markets well, not that it will keep doing so.
Most counties score between 45 and 56. Treat differences of a point or two as a tie.
New building counts against a market here because it adds supply. Counting it as a growth signal instead favors Sun Belt metros.
IRS income migration reflects 2022–23 filings; Census income, rent and vacancy figures are 2020–24 averages; the 2025 American Community Survey was delayed by the Commerce Department.
The 12-month price outlook rolls Zillow's ZIP-code forecasts up to counties; HUD's FY2027 rents are administrative benchmarks. Both are inputs, not predictions by this index.
Counties under 25,000 residents are scored but not ranked, because their numbers swing more from year to year. Some measures cover fewer counties; missing measures have their weight shared across the rest.
A country score uses national averages from central banks and statistics offices. Within a country, regions can move in opposite directions; check the regional layer where one exists.
Only about 58 economies publish a reliable national house price index. Countries without one are left grey rather than guessed.
Connecticut's new planning regions don't match the county lines the listing sources use. No free, national county-level foreclosure feed exists; CFPB delinquency rates (about 500 counties) are shown for context only.
Ask about any market, city or neighborhood: jobs, rent, prices, commutes or forecasts. Every answer comes from our data, with links.
Put the index to work on your own question.
Up to four side by side. US metros and counties share one scale; countries share another.
The metros within reach of your budget, ranked by outlook.
Your saved markets, kept in this browser.
Your job and priorities in, the best US metros out.
Where your job pays best after living costs.
Get an email when something changes, instead of checking every day.