The value of housing in the Philly area rose by $41.5 billion in a year, ranking it among the top growing markets
In June, the value of housing across the United States reached a record high of $55.1 trillion. New Jersey and Pennsylvania ranked in the top four states for one-year housing wealth gains.
The Philadelphia region gained $41.5 billion in housing value in a year, ranking the metropolitan area in the top three for housing wealth gains from June 2024 to June 2025, according to Zillow.
Housing wealth is the market value of all residential real estate in an area.
Homes in the Philadelphia region were worth a total of $932 billion in June, according to Zillow’s analysis, published last week.
An area’s total housing value increases when existing homes appreciate and also when homes are added. The Philadelphia area’s relative affordability compared to other Northeast markets has driven consistently strong demand, which increases the value of existing homes and attracts builders, said Orphe Divounguy, senior economist at Zillow.
While the number of permits to build single-family homes has dropped nationwide, the number in the Philadelphia metro was up in the first half of this year compared to the same time last year.
“This increase in housing stock, in addition to the increase in existing home values, helped Philadelphia make massive gains in its total market value this year,” Divounguy said in a statement.
Nationwide, housing wealth growth has slowed from pandemic highs as prospective buyers are priced out at the same time that more homeowners list properties for sale.
The typical U.S. home grew in value by less than 1% from June 2024 to June 2025, Divounguy said, while the value of the typical home in the Philadelphia metro grew by 3.4%.
Still, the value of housing across the United States reached a record high in June: $55.1 trillion. The U.S. housing market gained $20 trillion just since February 2020, mostly from the price appreciation of existing homes.
Since February 2020, the Philadelphia metro gained $343 billion in housing wealth.
Among states, New Jersey and Pennsylvania ranked in the top four for growth from June 2024 to June 2025.
States in the Northeast and Midwest are driving new housing wealth gains, while states in the South and Mountain West that boomed during the pandemic are cooling off.
“During the pandemic, these markets offered much greater housing affordability than the large coastal cities, but after several years of strong demand, the affordability edge in many of these markets has eroded,” Divounguy said.
New York gained $216 billion in housing wealth in a year, the most of any state. This represents a quarter of the country’s total one-year housing wealth growth.
For each region, Zillow used Census Bureau data and its estimates of average home values to determine estimates of total housing market values.
Metros with the biggest housing wealth gains
The New York metropolitan area gained a whopping $260 billion in just a year — the biggest annual gain by far among metro areas.
Next is the Chicago metro area, which gained $62.5 billion, followed by the Philadelphia area.
Although large metro areas had big housing wealth gains, smaller markets are driving more of the country’s recent gains overall, Zillow found.
More than half of the country’s housing wealth gains from June 2024 to June 2025 happened outside of the largest metropolitan areas. The 100 biggest metros were responsible for about 45% of the country’s housing wealth gains.
Of the 10 metros with the largest gains in housing wealth in this one-year period, Philadelphia and five others are worth less than $1 trillion.
“These smaller markets are making major gains because of their relative affordability compared to those much larger markets, which is attracting more buyers to these areas,” Divounguy said. And many of these markets historically have not built enough housing to meet demand, he said, “which has contributed to a rise in the values of existing homes.”
Metros with housing markets worth more than $1 trillion
In nine metropolitan areas, housing is worth more than $1 trillion. All together, these places contain almost a third of the country’s housing wealth.
The New York area leads the pack. Its housing market was worth $4.6 trillion in June.
Next is the Los Angeles area at $3.9 trillion and the San Francisco area at $1.9 trillion.