TOLEDO — Toledo recorded the largest annual increase in typical home values of any of the 100 major U.S. cities in a SmartAsset study, rising 5.6 percent over the year through February 2026, in national reporting published Wednesday, Oct. 14, that put the Glass City ahead of far larger and more expensive markets.
The ranking is striking because of what happened almost everywhere else. Values fell in about 70 percent of the cities SmartAsset analyzed between February 2025 and February 2026, yet Toledo moved in the opposite direction — and faster than anywhere else in the study.
Lincoln, Nebraska, was second at 4.1 percent, while New York City and San Francisco each gained roughly 4 percent. At the other end of the table, Oakland, California, posted the steepest decline in the study at 9.1 percent, with sharp drops also reported in parts of Florida and in Austin, Texas.
Affordability is a big part of Toledo’s story. SmartAsset put the city’s typical home value at $126,270 in February — a fraction of prices in the coastal markets Toledo outpaced — making it one of the few large-city markets where a typical home remains within reach of first-time buyers and households priced out of bigger metropolitan areas.
Local market conditions reinforce that demand. Toledo brokerage Wiens & Roth Real Estate pointed to very tight inventory — roughly a month and a half of housing supply — and to interest from buyers who have been squeezed out of more expensive metros. When few homes are for sale and more buyers are looking, the homes that do list tend to sell quickly and at rising prices.
Separate sale-price data tells a similar story at a different price point. Redfin figures distributed earlier this year put Toledo’s median sale price at $195,450 for the first three months of 2026, up 9.4 percent from a year earlier. The median sale price and SmartAsset’s typical value measure different things — one tracks homes that sold, the other estimates values across the market — but both point the same way: up.
For Toledo homeowners, the gain is equity on paper that can mean more borrowing power or a stronger sale when they are ready to move. For renters hoping to buy, the same numbers are a warning: a market that stays this tight can close the affordability advantage that made Toledo attractive in the first place if values keep climbing faster than local incomes.
What happens next depends on supply. If more owners list their homes, or new construction adds inventory, price growth could cool toward the national pattern. If the roughly six-week supply holds, Toledo could again rank near the top of national value-gain lists — a distinction that is good news for sellers and a growing challenge for the buyers still trying to get in.
