Discover Key Market Trends: National Real Estate Insights – January 2025

After significantly declining in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2024, the average mortgage interest rate bounced back up in the last 4 months.

This chart illustrates annual, median, existing-house sales prices, but annual condo/co-op prices also increased. Note that median sales prices can be affected by other factors besides changes in fair market value. For example, if affluent buyers increase their percentage share of homes purchased, as they did in 2024, that will help pull median prices up simply because they buy more expensive homes.

A review of approximate, year-over-year, house-price appreciation rates.

Due to trends in population migration, new-home construction, and housing affordability, the southern region of the country has been dominating home sales in recent years.

Illustrating regional home-price appreciation rates since 1990: Over the shorter term, annual appreciation changes can vary significantly between regions, but over the longer term, regional rates generally move roughly in parallel, affected by the same major macroeconomic conditions.

2024 saw a significant rebound from 2023 in the number of new listings, but the count remained far down from long-term standards – with considerable impact on supply and demand dynamics. Many would-be sellers are still holding off, reluctant to trade a low interest rate loan for a much higher rate on a new home. Of course, this does not apply to the increasing percentage of buyers who pay all-cash, and high levels of home equity and soaring stock markets are big factors in this trend.

The monthly, average number of homes for sale rose substantially in 2024 to its highest point in 4 years, but didn’t compare with norms before the pandemic hit.

Impacted by a number of factors, total sales volume remained very low in 2024. Sales did not keep pace with the increase in listings, creating a cooling effect on national market conditions, though median sales prices still rose. (How any of these national trends apply to specific markets and market segments can vary widely.)

The next 2 charts illustrate the enormous effect of seasonality on supply and demand: The first chart below shows the ups and downs in the monthly number of homes put on the market. Hitting its nadir in December, it will now typically climb quickly to peak in late spring or early summer.

Seaonality in demand: Monthly sales volumes closely follow new-listing activity. Note that some markets see different trends: For example, in big second-home markets, sales can peak during vacation months.

A review of U.S. Census population-change maps over the past 3 years: In the last 12-month period measured, all but a few states saw population increases, including those which had seen significant previous declines (orange/brown) – their recent increases being mostly due to foreign immigration – but the highest growth states (dark green) generally remained the same since 2021.

The crisis in homeowner’s insurance availability and cost has been widely reported. Unfortunately, 2024 was a bad year for natural disasters, and 2025 has had a sad, terrible beginning. This table reviews approximate insurance costs across a selection of states – costs very much in flux – and lists some of the factors at play.