This is a list of hot housing markets (Q3 2007) based on two criteria: housing affordability and housing prices. All of the metropolitan areas on the list have housing opportunity indices (HOIs) greater than the national average of roughly 40 and rising housing prices.

blog on the data: http://blog.fortiusone.com/2007/12/09/hot-housing-markets/

The HOI is a number that ranges from 0 to 100 and it measures the percent of the households in a region with a median income in that area that can afford the homes for sale. Source: Wells Fargo - National Association of Homebuilders ( [Link]

The housing price index comes from the Office of Federal Enterprise Oversight([Link] additional indices were created for each metro area based on the original data:

Normalized HOI: City HOI for 3d Quarter 2007 divided by the maximum value of HOI on the list.
Normalized Change in HPI: City Percent Increase in HPI divided by the maximum percent increase on the list.
Index of Market Attractiveness: Normalized HOI multiplied by Normalized Change in HPI.

The indices were created to highlight which cities are relatively affordable and have relatively high growth rates in housing prices.
The data can be mapped at Geocommons.com: geocommons.