Top 10 hottest neighborhoods for 2015

While home buying has increased nationally, there are few cities in the U.S. that show true promise in 2015.

To rank the neighborhoods that have grown the most in popularity leading into the new year, Redfin analyzed hundreds of millions of pages that its website users visited, homes they added as favorites to monitor for price changes or sales and the prevalence of "hot homes," as determined by its Hot Homes Algorithm. The analysis also takes into account insights from Redfin real estate agents who specialize in neighborhoods across these 27 major U.S. cities..

The common theme among the hottest neighborhoods of 2015 is compromise. In a recent Redfin homebuyer survey, affordability was ranked as the biggest obstacle to owning a home for the first time since early 2012. As affordable inventory remained low throughout most of 2014, homebuyers began to look a bit further afield to find the perfect home without sacrificing the conveniences of being close to an urban center.

“Many homebuyers have recoiled from the dramatic increase in house prices in urban centers posted over the past three years,” Redfin Chief Economist Nela Richardson, said. “They are now searching for more affordable places farther out. Expect the neighborhoods on this list to see high demand in 2015 as rock-bottom mortgage rates and a more lenient mortgage lending environment help make homeownership in expensive cities less costly.”