Twenty U.S. metropolitan areas are now part of the expanding Improving Markets Index as of this month, according to the National Association of Home Builders and First American Title Insurance. The February IMI list now includes 259 metro areas and has all 50 states represented on the list, including the District of Columbia.

The new cities represented 15 states with Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, North Carolina and Texas adding two cities apiece. Among the new additions were Racine, Wisconsin; New York, New York; El Paso, Texas; Albuquerque, New Mexico; and Topeka, Kansas. Three areas fell off the IMI’s list: Champaign, Illinois; Lebanon, Pennsylvania; and Amarillo, Texas. According to NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe, a little more than 70% of the 361 metro areas covered by the IMI are listed as improving this month.

Improving markets are defined as those that have posted six straight months of improvement in these three areas: home prices provided by Freddie Mac; employment data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and construction activity as measured by data on building permits from the Census Bureau.