The second-hottest zip code of 2025 is in South Jersey, Realtor.com says

When Jenna and Josh Feldschneider started looking for another home as their young family outgrew their Marlton townhouse, they only considered one location: Marlton.

They loved their neighbors and Marlton’s sense of community. The South Jersey town has good schools and lots of playgrounds and parks. It’s not far from Philadelphia and the Shore. And Jenna Feldschneider has had family there her whole life.

Even before they bought their townhouse, when they rented an apartment in Mount Laurel, they always ended up in Marlton for the restaurants and stores.

“I feel like it’s the center of everything,” said Feldschneider, 34.

And now it’s getting national recognition. Realtor.com has named Marlton’s 08053 the second-hottest zip code of 2025.

Realtor.com’s annual ranking measures buyer demand and market competitiveness by looking at the number of unique viewers per listing and how quickly homes sell.

Roughly four times more unique viewers looked at each Marlton listing on Realtor.com than the national average, and homes spent a median of 17 days on the market, compared to the national median of 58 days. The analysis used Realtor.com listing data from January to June of this year.

Just over half of the people who viewed Marlton home listings in the first half of the year lived outside of the Philadelphia region. Residents in the New York City metro area made up 25% of all views, according to Realtor.com.

“In a year when affordability challenges and limited inventory continue to weigh on buyers, the zip codes rising to the top of our list stand out for offering both strong value and livability,” Danielle Hale, chief economist at Realtor.com, said in a statement. “Once again, the Northeast and Midwest dominate, driven by buyers from high-cost metros looking for relief without sacrificing access to jobs and amenities.”

The hottest markets in the ranking are in suburbs with “strong ties to major metros,” according to the Realtor.com report. They also skew older and wealthier.

Beverly, Mass., in the Boston metropolitan area came in at No. 1 this year.

The Feldschneiders had been looking for a single-family detached house in Marlton for a while. They wanted more indoor and outdoor space for their young daughter and their golden retriever. While waiting for the birth of their second child, they figured they should pull back on their search for a bit.

Then the couple saw a house for sale in a nearby development they had always loved.

They put an offer on the house at the end of April. Their son was born a couple weeks later.

“The timing of it was crazy, but we didn’t want to let it go,” Jenna said.

She and her husband closed on their home on June 26 and moved in the last week of July. They plan to stay there “for a very long time,” she said.

Even though her family loves Marlton, she said she was “shocked” that it beat out bigger and more well-known places to make the list of the country’s hottest zip codes.

Sean Parsons, a real estate agent at the firm Agent06 based in Haddonfield, said he’s sure the city in Massachusetts that bested Marlton is lovely. He hasn’t been. But he does know Marlton.

Parsons was born and raised there and was “very proud and very excited” to see its place on Realtor.com’s list.

For a decade, he lived in New York City, where he’d tell people about his hometown: “You probably haven’t heard of it, but it’s a gem.”

He moved back last September. “I just kind of was longing for that same pace I grew up with,” he said.

“We have parades up and down Main Street it seems once a month,” Parsons said. Marlton “put[s] a lot of effort into creating community spirit.”

Marlton is a section of Evesham Township that historically was a village. It has a population of roughly 10,600 people.

Generations of families stay in Marlton, including families who founded the village and the township, said Parsons, who also is a member of the Evesham Historical Society.

Across Marlton, “the for-sale signs are not up on the lawn long,” he said.

Parsons said he sees “a huge market of consumers” in their mid-30s to mid-50s “that want character in their homes, and there’s a lot of that in Marlton.” It’s a place with a mix of older and newer homes, including “high quality” ones built within the last 50 years that maintain community character, “which I would say is the biggest selling point for Marlton,” he said.

He calls Marlton “a quiet, safe community that has all the amenities you’d ever need,” but without the “dense suburban sprawl” of towns closer to Philadelphia.

Housing developments have schools that children can walk to, but the town is also situated at the beginning of the vast, outdoor destination that is the Pinelands.

Angela Barnshaw, CEO and broker of record at Agent06, said that during her two decades selling real estate in South Jersey, she’s wondered when Marlton would get the recognition it deserves. She described it as a “low-key town” that has an “elevated aesthetic.”

“Marlton has always been one of those towns where you’re kind of waiting for it to be noticed,” she said.

It’s smaller than nearby communities that also benefit from its location, and its size contributes to its family-friendly and close-knit vibes, she said.

“The biggest thing it boils down to is the perfect special recipe Marlton has of providing everything a family is looking for” at a relatively affordable price, Barnshaw said.

She said that when a client is set on living in a popular town such as Cherry Hill, for example, but can’t afford to buy a home there, “We say, ‘There’s a neighboring town called Marlton. Great community, schools, beautiful parks. Let’s go take a look.’”