Fort Lauderdale ranks fourth hottest housing market: report

Fort Lauderdale ranked fourth in a list of the top 49 hottest single-family housing markets in the U.S., according to Auction.com.

Home prices and housing demand in the city are closing in on pre-downturn levels, according to the report.

The market has seen a 7.8-percent gain in home prices and 2.3-percent increase in volume of sales year-over-year.

Population numbers were also up 1.3 percent in 2014, and employment the estimated 100,000 jobs lost during the recession have been recovered, according to the report.

The top spot on the list belonged to Denver, Colorado, which enjoyed a 9.2-percent increase in home prices and a 4.6-percent increase in sales volume year-over-year.

Fort Lauderdale was followed by Dallas and Fort Worth in Texas; Seattle, Washington; San Francisco, California; and Phoenix, Arizona.

“As the U.S. housing market has continued to recover from the Great Recession, we’ve seen significant regional variances in terms of both price appreciation and sales volume,” said Auction.com Executive Vice President Rick Sharga in a statement. “Earlier in the recovery, most of the growth came from markets that had suffered the biggest declines during the housing bust, but what we’re seeing today is more in line with fundamental economic trends: markets with the best job growth and population growth are recovering most quickly.” — Sean Stewart-Muniz