Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-April 2025

This 2-part overview for mid-April provides a snapshot of the current housing market.

At this moment, we can’t talk housing without mentioning the overall economy.

Just over two weeks ago, I revised down my outlook for housing this year, see Policy and 2025 Housing Outlook. Since then, policy and the outlook have taken a turn for the worse. One point I made in March was:

And another factor is the recent stock market volatility. Ten percent corrections are common, a further sell-off will have a negative wealth effect for potential home buyers.

Stock markets are now down around 20% (with crazy volatility). And it is likely this will negatively impact home sales.

On my blog, I went on Recession Watch over the weekend (not predicting a recession yet because the U.S. economy is very resilient, was on solid footing at the beginning of the year, and the tariffs might be lowered or reversed). And I discussed some of the data I’ll be watching in Recession Watch Metrics.

And on housing: Inventory, inventory, inventory! Inventory is increasing sharply, and inventory usually tells the tale.

New Listings for Existing Homes Up Year-over-year in March

Realtor.com reports in March 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report that new listings were up 10.2% year-over-year in March. However, new listings are still well below pre-pandemic levels. From Realtor.com:

There was some positive news for inventory: newly listed homes rose 10.2% year-over-year in March, up from February’s 5.1% gain. That makes it the most active March for new listings in three years. While mortgage rates are still elevated, it’s possible that some homeowners are deciding they can’t wait any longer, choosing to list now rather than hold out for a major drop in mortgage rates.

And active listings were up 28.5% year-over-year.

Buyers had more homes to choose from this March, with the number of homes actively for sale up 28.5% compared to the same time last year. That marks the 17th month in a row of year-over-year inventory growth and a slight improvement over February’s gain of 27.5%. Still, even with this progress, housing inventory remains 20.2% below typical levels seen between 2017 and 2019, showing that the market still has catching up to do.

Note the seasonality for active listings. The next few months will be the key for inventory.

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