8 Best Indianapolis Suburbs | Forget Carmel and Fishers

Everyone thinks of Carmel and Fisers when discussing Indianapolis suburbs. But the true Hooers know where the real suburban value is. My name is Max Moore and I'm joined by my co-host Tyler Lingal and together we run an Indianapolis real estate team that's helped buy and sell over 400 homes in the last 3 years. Today we're ranking the top eight best Indianapolis suburbs for 2026. Whether you're a home buyer, an out ofstate investor, or a local Hooser, you might be surprised by what makes a list and what doesn't. So, let's jump right in. We're going to run this draft style. Tyler, he's got the first pick. You know, we traded back in 2025, so I picked up an all-star player. He's got the first pick in our Snake draft. Tyler, what's pick number one in the 2026 home suburban roots pick? We're going with Fernando Mendoza. Let's go. Hoosiers and Signetti. That's it. That's the video. No, I'm joking. Uh, with pick number one, sorry, Caramel, you're going to get outflanked by Westfield on this one, which I'm dubbing Caramel Jr. So, think of Westfield. It's still in Hamilton County. It still has nice expensive homes, great golf courses, awesome dining, right on the Monan, but it's much more affordable and friendly to especially the younger generation and frankly our generation. Uh, in the median home buyer, it's probably 100 to 50k less in medium price than Caramel. Caramel is just just outpricing everyone. Uh, but I have some stats that I think are important to share. Westfield has doubled in population size in the last 15 years. So, I mean, the stats speak for itself. It's consistently ranked among the fastest growing cities in the country, and it's the only Midwest city ranked in the top 15 fastest US cities in 2023. Two developments that I think are attracting a lot of people. One, they're building a 126 acre nature park with a massive lake and like a water park right on the border of Westfield. You have Grand Park, which is like a top youth sports destination. Uh we've already mentioned the Monon, but they're building a 2200 home development right on the Monon. It's going to have like some higher density like shops, restaurants, like urban living right on the Monon. So, they're kind of mixing it up, making it really the ultimate destination if you're in the younger generation or if you're older, but especially younger generation and want an affordable city on the north side. And it's super accessible, right? Like you're coming from the city, you Carmel has done all the right things with TIFF money to make Keystone A. Just you can jet right across that don't speed first ever uh ticket I got in my life was right up on there headed to Westfield. So um the police in Caramel are I was going five over and I got pulled over. Especially if your license plate isn't a Caramel license plate or Indiana. Uh back to you Max. Number two, no surprises here. Right on brand. It's good old Danville. Danville, Indiana. It's, you know, where I reside. It's where I sleep at night. Why I love Danville as a suburb? Actually, I would rather none of you move there. So, just like let me be and live at peace. Um, is who owns Danville? Like, who owns the town square? I I firmly believe that there are people that care about the buildings that they own and care about where the town is headed and are vested in that because they also reside in Danville. And not that it's like a law that you have to reside in Danville, but um for the most part is I get to know the people um of the town. Everybody right in that community center all work, live, play, have full community right inside of um Danville. The median home price is very achievable. It's 370 370,000. And actually, I would say in like the experience of getting on Zillow is you're going to see uh nothing in that price point. Everything either way above or way below. It's uh interesting. There's some secret nice houses in Danville with a lot of land. The other thing I love about it is the land potential. One of my favorite real estate deals to do is to buy land and chop it up for private custom homes to come build. Um, so I've done a few of those over the last year or so where you buy 10 acres, chop it into three 3 acre parcels, you know, get it all subdivided and platted out and then have uh sell them off and you can buy one for like 700 for 10 acres and sell them for 65 70k an acre, the smaller lots, and get your lot for free. So it's like immediate equity, kind of like a burr on your own home, your own custom build. um the town will start slowing down on that, but there's so much land potential. We just have to get the square right. Mhm. And if we can get the square right and we do the right developments outward and maybe slow a little bit of the Dr. Horton Monopoly play against Hawkeye Storage, we maybe can make it and it can be a really cool place. Yeah. And I think a lot of people's push back is the travel there, right? You're going down 36 light light or you're going over 74. But that's also what makes it so special and kind of buffers it so it stays small. It's like the most iconic Hooser roots town square. Like it's when you think small town Indiana, it's Danville, right? The Mayberry Cafe and then it has the economy to back it to where it's not like falling apart, right? It's like solid developed and it's there. Maybe some lead based paint here and there, but that won't hurt anybody. It actually probably will. Back to you, Tyler. Pick number three. Man, I promise I'm not going all north side, but there are some on the north side that are just killer. I mean, the north side does have a lot of money in development, but I promise guys, this is pretty much my last north side pick, which if I was just blank slate moving to Indie from anywhere in the country, had a million dollars in my bank account, $500,000 in my bank account, I'd be going to Zensville. And that is entirely because of the village of Zensville. I told our producer, one of our producers, Trace, that hey, if you love Boulder, which he's from Boulder, check out Zensville. And when you go there, you get like these quaint little coffee shops and boutiques and uh the diner, restaurant, and you can walk everywhere and there's like uh houses around there like cottages and like nice custom homes. And then you go out to the the more subdivisions and it's like nice custom. It's where they have Homeama, too. So, it's literally like the most eminent spot for architectural innovation probably in the city. It is uh like all Colts players, uh, Pacers players, like half of them I feel like live either they either live in Gist or live in Zensville. And Zensville, I think, just has more of the urban dynamic that makes it a true small town. Feels like a small town, not a suburb. All right, Max, back to you. I'm going to go right next door. like literally right next door and choose Whitestown. I'd love to pop up just the map of Whitestown in 2010 uh and look at how many roads there were. There was 3,000 people living there and like five roads in total. And now if you pop up a graph of 2026, there are all these different uh neighborhoods and roads going everywhere fullon, you know, what you would expect to be in a town. You know, you've got all the stores that you would want. There's Chick-fil-A there, Starbucks is there. Um, and it's it's at 14,000 people in just 15 years. What's that like quadrupled in size? Yeah. 11. 6 annually. It's like one of the fastest growing, potentially the fastest growing. And it's so affordable. It's 300K at a medium price. You can get into a new development. I just had a first-time home buyer close. We had closing costs paid for and a first-time home buy like LAR build closing costs paid for, 8K in lender credits. Um, and then they got like a little new year bonus washer and dryer kit. Uh, they closed for2 grand on a $300,000 house. 2 grand out of their pocket. They maybe put some ear money down, so seven grand, but their monthly payment is like 2500 bucks. And they are living in the fastest growing town that is the most accessible town in all of the state. I'll go out and say because of the I65 corridor and the way that they have mapped that out. There's like a perfect beautiful triangle of you can get to anywhere within 20 minutes. You can like I I'll challenge you go anywhere and try to get to Whitesttown. I bet you're there in 20 minutes. It's kind of sick. And I'll say the like secret hidden gem is there is right in between Zansville and Whitest. So right between three and four, which is old historic Trader Point. Uh Trader Point Crearyy. That would be a great gym to go try out. You'll feel like you kind of just went to the countryside in the middle of all of this like booming small town population. It's like, "Oh, where did all the houses and restaurants and things go?" It's like so nice and quiet and then 2 minutes, bam, you're right back into civilization, which I don't know. I I don't like it's just putting Danville into the mix is how like the feel of living in Danville and then the mix of all of the traffic and movement. Um, so anyways, that's my favorite place in the whole state. Back to you for number five. For number five, I'm going with McCordsville. I find it to be similar to Whiteststone, just maybe not as hyperrowth. So, you kind of want the more backwater laidback version to Whitest. You're if you took a subdivision from Whitest and compared to McCordesville, because I've sold some new builds in McCordsville, they look the same. Price points are the same. Uh the look is the same. The only difference to McCordesville is it's on the other side of Indie on the east side, just south of Fisers. So, I know a lot of people that are like, Fischers is just the congested, overpop populated. It had its heyday back in 2010s. It's still a great place. It's just very populated. Um, McCordsville still located near Gist, so you get the waterfront, a lot of cool restaurants and coffee shops over there, but much more achievable and more like you're kind of living in the country. But that's going to change because the town manager Tim Grarrop recently uh stated that he's projecting they're going to go from six about 13,000 in population to 40 in the next like 20 years. So like more than double population is what they're planning for their infrastructure. They're doing a lot of sewer work, a lot of like road work um all along that area. Uh there's a lot of people going from Fisers south and they're either going to Fortville, right? Or they're going to McCordesville area in Hancock County, which McCordsville is in Hancock County. Yeah. You get priced out of the marketplace and where do you go, right? You go to McCordsville. It's just like Cornfield's turning into a a beautiful small town. Beautiful suburb. It's not really a small town, more of a suburb, but you get the picture. All right. Number six, a quick aside. Most people overpay for insurance or worse, they're undercovered and they don't realize it. We partner with Jackson Blevens at Core Insurance Solutions. He's a full-ervice broker here locally in Indianapolis who handles everything from home, auto, boat, he can do it all and he understands the retail side and investor side of the game. If you want someone who can shop the market for you and tailor correct coverage for your property, connect with Jackson in the description below. Pick six. I'm going to select Monrovia. I don't know. You guys maybe have never heard of Monrovia before, but let me put you on right now. You guys know what Cadam is? You know where Live Indie Golf was hosted? Well, the same developer that put all of that in Westfield. And honestly, arguably, that might be why Westfield blew up in the way that it did is taking their talents to Deer Creek Golf Course. And they're doing the same thing in Monrovia. Monroia just as accessible. You've got I7 coming down the track. You've got 39 brings you straight into 20 West Maine. Grab a bite to eat in Danville. You're not far away. 15 minutes away. My preferred golf course is Deer Creek currently. not gonna be in the future because I won't be able to afford to play there because it's going to be so flipping nice. Just watch it. I've got no stats besides Monrovia is up next. I love that. I would never have thought of Monrovia, but it's got some rolling hills, too. You kind of feel like you're out in the country, southern Indiana. It's gorgeous down there. Uh pick number seven. You guys did not expect this one. We're going way out towards the southernmost reaches of the Indie Metro, which is Franklin. Whoa. Franklin has Franklin College. So, it's a it's a college town. I mean, that's that's kind of dope. Number one, you have a town square. So, you think Noblesville, Danville, uh, county seat, you know, little square. Their uh their county courthouse is like belongs in some museum. I mean, it's beautiful. Uh, tons of amazing shops, restaurants, ery. You could walk around and spend a day there even if you don't want to live there. But living there is very affordable. think median price 350 300 tons of first-time home buyer uh new builds popping up. Tons of old ranches that you could live and extremely accessible. So, yes, you're going to look at the map and be like, Tyler, this is really far away. Right next to I65, so it's literally 30 minutes to downtown. And on the map, you would not be able to tell. So, I'm going with Franklin for number seven. All right, buddy. I don't know. I got to convince Max a little more on that one. My uh cousin lives there that he just raves. He has this like country club membership and plays pickle ball every day with his buddies. Yeah, they're pretty good at swimming. That's all I know about them. They were good at swimming. So, if you got a swimmer, they need to be at Franklin or Danville. Max is the coach at Danville. All right, number eight. Pick number eight's coming in. It's the size 103K residence as of 2025. It's no secret to Indiana. Some may refer to it as Carmel from out of state, but it is Caramel Indiana. It's got to be on the list, right? Like how do we make a top eight list and not include most roundabouts? I mean you Yeah. If you want to get dizzy, go to Caramel. Um celebrating the 50 years anniversary of caramel. Chris Kendall Mart. I mean Kindle Mart's pretty sick. It's a little busy now, but it's cute. It's awesome. Do we even like have to break it down? I mean, come on. It's just it's caramel. If you don't know about it, you've got to go to it and go check it out. All right. Honorable mention cuz I know I'm going to get some hate. I got a lot of friends that are moving there, live there. Noblesville, I'm sorry you didn't make our top eight just because we we we didn't want to do all Hamilton County, but Noblesville, you're awesome. You have a great town square. It's a beautiful place to live. So, shout out to Noblesville. Noville is making the right moves to get people attracted to go there. It's like what Danville will be in 20 years. Yeah, exactly. We just picked Danville because it's it's uh it's earlier on and we like that. We're investors. Yeah, we're vested there. So, got to get the clicks. Well, thanks for watching till the end to see our top eight list of 2026 and one honorable mention. If you want more content from the roots, guys, come check us out. We've got a full podcast. Make sure to subscribe, like, leave a comment. What' we miss? Peace.