CHESTER COUNTY, PA — Chester County closed out 2025 with a housing market that remained firmly in sellers’ hands, and new national forecasts suggest the county is positioned to benefit from an even hotter Northeast market in 2026.
In December, the county’s median home sale price reached about $550,000, a 6 percent increase from a year earlier. Homes typically went under contract in roughly 10 days, and sale-to-list price ratios hovered near 100 percent, a sign that buyers are still paying full asking prices. A total of 461 homes sold during the month, up 6 percent from December 2024, even as the market entered its normal winter slowdown.
Inventory increased modestly from a year earlier, giving buyers slightly more options, but overall supply remains tight and well below pre-pandemic levels. Cash buyers continued to dominate much of the market in 2025, allowing for fast, low-risk closings and making it harder for financed buyers to compete in a high-rate environment. Submarkets such as West Chester, Downingtown, Kennett Square, and Phoenixville remained especially strong.
Those local conditions align closely with Zillow’s latest national outlook, which points to the Northeast as one of the most competitive housing regions in the country for 2026. Zillow’s annual hottest markets forecast shows buyer competition will be fiercest in supply-constrained Northeastern metros and coastal California, where new construction has failed to keep pace with demand.
The New York metro area, which includes parts of Pennsylvania, ranked third on Zillow’s list of hottest markets for 2026, behind Hartford and Buffalo. In those markets, Zillow expects price cuts to be rare, homes to move quickly, and price growth to remain solid.
Hartford, the top-ranked market, illustrates the kind of dynamics also playing out in southeastern Pennsylvania. Inventory there is still 63 percent below pre-pandemic levels, and more than 66 percent of homes sold above list price in 2025, the highest share among major U.S. metros. Home values in Hartford rose 4.6 percent last year and are forecast to climb another 3.9 percent in 2026.
“Competition among buyers will be stiff and sellers will have the upper hand in this year’s hottest markets,” said Zillow chief economist Mischa Fisher. “Shoppers will need to tap all the resources they can muster in these fast-moving markets.”
Zillow expects home values nationally to rise a modest 1.7 percent in 2026 as mortgage rates gradually drift toward 6 percent, easing some affordability pressure. But in supply-starved Northeast markets tied to strong job growth and limited new construction, price momentum is likely to remain stronger.
For Chester County, that means the forces that drove its resilient 2025 performance are still firmly in place. Strong employment centers, highly rated school districts, and chronically tight inventory continue to attract buyers, keeping upward pressure on prices. As the broader Northeast heats up again in 2026, Chester County appears set to remain a seller’s market, even without the kind of boom-and-bust swings seen elsewhere.
For the latest news on everything happening in Chester County and the surrounding area, be sure to follow MyChesCo on Google News and MSN.