America's Fastest-Selling ZIP Codes from Forbes Magazine

No. 2 San Francisco, Calif., 94111
Year-Over-Year Change in Home Sales: 106.52%
2008 Median Sale Price: $755,000
San Francisco's financial district continued to see healthy home sales over the last year. Whether or not the recent financial crisis will affect this remains to be seen, but real estate agents will have a better idea in February or March, the post-bonus season window when financial-industry types tend to put down payments on homes. However, the area has seen steady appreciation since 2003, when the median price of a home was $600,000. Even a major spike in home prices in 2005, which caused the market to dip, hasn't pushed numbers too low.
As credit tightens, job losses and foreclosures mount and stocks see-saw, getting a mortgage is the last thing on many Americans' list of things to do this year.
That's not the case for home buyers in Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y. (population: 4,975). This quaint town on the North Shore of Long Island--with a Main Street that's only one-fifth of a mile long--is popular among buyers, and that's despite a $100,000 year-over-year median home sale price decrease to $1.2 million. Home sales there jumped 65.63% last year; there were 53 more from July 2007 to June 2008 than the same period a year prior. If you're looking to stay put, and have the money, it's a good buy; experts believe homes in this area will appreciate.
In Depth: 10 Spots Where Homes Are Selling Fast
Other neighborhoods are appreciating and selling well. That is, if you're willing to pay up. The median home sale price in most of these areas is more than $700,000, which puts them in the richest 1% of ZIP codes in the country. They include 10069, a part of New York's Upper West Side, 94111 in San Francisco, Cold Spring Harbor's 11724 and Fisher Island, Fla., ZIP 33109.
Wealth matters here. If buyers aren't paying cash for these homes upfront, they likely have enough net income to secure a mortgage, which is rare during this tight credit period.

"The areas that have been insulated from the [mortgage meltdown] tend to have high-income residents," says Walter Maloney, a spokesman for the National Association of Homebuilders (NAHB), a Washington, D.C.-based trade organization.
Behind the Numbers
To determine our list of the 10 best ZIP codes to buy a home, we looked at the percent increase in home sales from July 2007 to June 2008 in the top 500 richest ZIP codes in the country. This data was provided by First American CoreLogic, a Santa Ana, Calif.-based provider of real estate property and ownership information.
It's no surprise that Manhattan ZIP code 10069 tops our list. This patch of the city's Upper West Side--which falls between the Henry Hudson Parkway and West End Avenue and between 60th Street and 70th Street--has seen its home sales double in the last year to 233. That's mostly due to Riverside Boulevard's Trump Place, a 16-building, 5,700-unit apartment complex set to be completed in 2009.
But that's just one building, which means that once all the units are sold, the percent increase in homes sales in this ZIP code--108.04% from July 2007 to June 2008--is likely to slow down. The area remains desirable, however, for homeowners looking for a long-term investment. It's what economists call proximity value: A condo that's located near several other very expensive properties--like the Trump units, which cost upward of $1 million for a one bedroom--will hold its value better than one on the fringe of a metro area.
Fisher Island, a man-made resort island off the coast of Miami Beach that represents ZIP code 33109, is one of the only spots in the state of Florida that has stayed afloat during this real estate meltdown. While the median sale price of a home over the last year was $3.85 million, that number increased by half a million from 2007. Unlike some pricey spots that see an influx of buyers and then a severe dip in interest, the secluded Fisher Island has remained exclusive for an extended period because of its limited space. There are just 218 households on the private, 216-acre island. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the area boasted the highest per capita income of any U.S. area in 2000.
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