Fairport is New York’s hottest housing market, and one of the top ZIP codes for homes sales in the nation, according to Realtor.com.
Brighton has topped the list in past years, and Pittsford as well as the city’s 14609 neighborhoods have placed in the Top 10.
The annual Hottest ZIP Code ranking is based on market demand as measured by the number of unique viewers per property on the website, and the number of days a listing remains active.
The northeast and Midwest dominated the list, while the South and West did not have a single market in the Top 50. The Hottest market was Peabody, Massachusetts, outside Boston, followed by Montclair, New Jersey, just west of New York City; , and Swell, New Jersey, which falls in the Philadelphia metro area.
"What's especially notable is how financially prepared these buyers are," Hannah Jones, senior economist at Realtor.com said in a release announcing the 2026 list made public Monday. “Even in ZIP codes where typical local incomes aren’t enough to cover today's home prices, buyers are showing up with larger down payments and stronger credit profiles than the national norm, which tells us this demand is real and well-capitalized."
East side preference
The real estate site caps its list at one ZIP code per metro, to avoid having a handful of metros dominating the rankings. So once the village of Fairport placed, no other Rochester ZIP could appear in the top 50.
In the Rochester metro, Webster ranks just behind Fairport, according to Realtor.com data, followed by Rochester’s 14609 ZIP code, Pittsford, Hilton and Canandaigua.
That Fairport edged out other ZIP codes is not surprising, local Realtor Mark Siwiec said, pointing to things like The Cannery, which have become popular entertainment destinations.
"Which used to play out in downtown Rochester,” he said. “Everybody would go to dinner in downtown Rochester. Everybody would go to convene and socialize in downtown Rochester. And a few years ago, that was all moved to Fairport.
“And Fairport has a great school district,” he continued. “It's got great housing stock. I mean, whether you want to live in something that's newer, or if you wanted to live in the village itself, you get old housing stock, you get newer housing stock. That's all fantastic.”
The only other New York market making Realtor.com’s Top 50 was the village of Endicott, outside Binghamton, coming in at No. 40.
A slow start
Some might be surprised at a local market placing highly at all, given how off local sales have been this year.
“The spring market did not exist here in Rochester,” Siwiec said, explaining that season typically begins in late January and runs through May. “This year, February was down 10%, there was a big of a recovery in March, and then sales were down again in April.”
The rankings assess sales for January through June. Locally, home sales didn’t truly get going until May, Siwiec said, and have been making up ground since.
According to Realtor.com, houses in Fairport’s 14450 ZIP code were selling at 14.4% over asking in the first half of the year, while nationally the typical home sold for 2.3% below asking.
Data collected by the Greater Rochester Association of Realtors shows the median sales price in the 14450 ZIP code stood at $400,000 through the first six months, up nearly 9% over the same period last year. New listings and closed sales also were up – outperforming the county as a whole, which saw a decline in closed sales through the first half of the year.
To Siwiec’s point, though, each month has show less of a decline or deficit, continuing through July.
“Enough people, I think, have swallowed hard and realized, ‘You know what? I don't want to give up this 3% mortgage, but I can't live in this 1,200-square-foot house with three kids any longer. I need to move,’” Siwiec said, which has increased inventory yet demand overall has not increased. "It actually has gone down. ... We haven't lost any value, but people are no longer getting eight offers on their property. People are no longer seeing properties selling $125,000 over asking.
“Stated another way,” he said, “we're in a late-stage sellers’ market -- and we are increasingly a market that is in equilibrium.”
