We’ve been responding to home buyer inquiries for nearly 20 years, and one question always seems to rise to the top.
“Is now a good time to buy a home?”
While this question requires some individual soul searching, housing market conditions play a part as well.
What Home Buyers Need to Know in Spring 2025
The U.S. real estate market has changed significantly over the past few years, and most of those changes benefit house hunters rather than sellers. In short, it’s a more buyer-friendly market in 2025.
The following trends, insights, and projections will help you decide if it’s the right time to buy.
1. Sellers outnumber buyers in many U.S. cities.
During the home-buying frenzy of a few years ago, the number of home buyers in the market greatly outnumbered the properties for sale. This imbalance created fierce competition for buyers and boosted home prices at a rate we had never seen before.
Today we are seeing the opposite, with sellers outnumbering buyers in many U.S. cities.
This reversal has eased competition among buyers and caused prices to slow down, or even reverse in some housing markets.
Market conditions can vary from one city or metro area to the next, often significantly. But overall, the supply-and-demand situation has shifted to favor buyers rather than sellers.
2. There are more homes on the market in 2025.
Perhaps the best news for home buyers is that inventory levels have risen steadily since the depletion caused by the pandemic.
According to a May 2025 report from Realtor.com:
“[T]he housing market offered buyers more options, as inventory continued to climb for the 17th straight month and new listings increased across most regions.”
While real estate listings have increased nationwide, the western U.S. has seen some of the biggest gains.
Among the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, the following 10 metros experienced the biggest increase in listings over the past year.
| Metro Area | Listings Growth |
| San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, Calif. | 67.90% |
| Las Vegas-Henderson-North Las Vegas, Nev. | 67.80% |
| Denver-Aurora-Centennial, Colo. | 67.30% |
| San Diego-Chula Vista-Carlsbad, Calif. | 66.60% |
| Sacramento-Roseville-Folsom, Calif. | 52.10% |
| Los Angeles-Long Beach-Anaheim, Calif. | 51.80% |
| Tucson, Ariz. | 50.80% |
| Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, Calif. | 50.20% |
| Charlotte-Concord-Gastonia, N.C.-S.C. | 47.40% |
| Raleigh-Cary, N.C. | 47.40% |
Inventory growth has shifted the housing market dynamic and, depending on where you live, could make it a great time to buy a home.
3. Mortgage rates are fluctuating in the upper-6% range.
For the past few months, rates have been fluctuating in the upper 6% range, averaging around 6.75% for a 30-year fixed-rate home loan.
While no one can predict future interest rate movements with total accuracy, some analysts believe rates will decline gradually later this year. Others expect to see more of the same.
Here’s a summary of recent predictions from expert sources:
- Fannie Mae: Expects mortgage rates to end 2025 at 6.2%. This is a slight downward revision from their previous forecast. They anticipate a modest decline in rates due to a slower pace of economic growth.
- Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA): Predicts the 30-year mortgage rate to be around 6.7% by the end of 2025.
- Bankrate: A poll of experts suggests an average 30-year rate of 6.66% for all of 2025, with an average expectation of 6.41% by the end of the year.
- J.P. Morgan: Does not expect rates to fall below 6% in 2025, projecting a slight easing to 6.7% by year-end.
Our take: When deciding if it’s the right time to buy, buyers should focus more on home price movement, income and job stability, and overall affordability—rather than rate predictions.
4. Homes are taking longer to sell in 2025, on average.
It takes longer to sell a home in 2025, when compared to the past few years. This is true for most U.S. cities, though conditions can vary from one market to the next.
Over the past few months, homes listed for sale across the country spent a median of 50 days on the market before going under contract. That’s 10 days longer than a year earlier, based on data provided by Redfin.
Realtor.com reports a similar trend, though their data show a milder slowdown. In a May 2025 report, the company stated: “Homes are taking slightly longer to sell than a year ago.”
We’re not talking about a full-on buyer’s market here. Sellers still have some negotiating leverage over the sale price and other terms.
But with longer listing times, sellers tend to be more flexible on pricing, contingencies, etc. This is a positive development for buyers.
The takeaway: In many housing markets across the U.S., inventory growth has slowed the pace of home sales. This gives buyers more time for due diligence.
5. Buyers have more bargaining power than they’ve had for a while.
The U.S. real estate market has moved in a buyer-friendly direction over the past two or three years—and especially since the hot seller’s market of 2020 to 2022.
In 2025, many local housing markets across the country are more balanced and neutral. Some markets (like most of Florida) actually favor buyers rather than sellers.
We can see this dynamic in several metrics. For example, a May 2025 report from Realtor.com stated: “18% of listings saw price reductions, the highest share for any April since at least 2016.”
In the real estate world, price reductions usually occur when a seller has been on the market for some time without any viable offers. So they drop the price to attract buyers.
The fact that price reductions have risen shows that the market currently favors buyers more so than in recent years. Some cities—such as Miami, New Orleans, and Memphis—are currently strong buyer’s markets.
But again, conditions can vary from one location to the next. Cities like Buffalo and San Francisco still favor sellers, due to low inventory and high demand.
5 Things Buyers Should Watch Out for in 2025
We’ve entered an interesting but uncertain phase for the U.S. real estate market.
The conditions of the past five years have defied the usual pattern, with unprecedented price growth followed by sustained market cooling.
So it’s nearly impossible to predict what the market might be like a year from now, two years out, etc.
But here are some trends home buyers should pay attention to in 2025:
1. The possibility of home price erosion
The nationwide median home price rose by around 2% over the past year, according to Zillow.
But when we drill down to individual states, metro areas and cities, the results are more mixed.
For example, the median home price for Arizona, Florida, and Texas has declined over the past year—to varying degrees. In contrast, many other states have experienced steady price growth.
Some analysts expect home prices to level off through the rest of 2025, even in those markets where they are currently rising.
Home buyers should pay close attention to what’s happening in their local area. If prices are dropping, it might warrant a wait-and-see approach for the time being.
But if prices are currently climbing, postponing a home purchase could lead to higher costs down the road.
2. Job security and economic stability
Recent surveys have shown that consumers are increasingly pessimistic about the economy, partly due to concerns over trade wars, inflation, and the possibility of a recession.
Historically, mortgage rates fall during downturns as capital flows to bonds. But job losses and tighter credit standards often offset any interest rate relief.
Before making a purchase, home buyers should consider their income stability and the likelihood of continued employment.
3. Home insurance costs and availability
Rising natural‑disaster risk is reshaping insurance availability and costs nationwide. Insurers are retreating from high‑risk areas, leaving coverage gaps in flood, wildfire, and hurricane‑prone regions.
Nationwide, home‑insurance premiums climbed 30% between 2020 and 2023, with heavier spikes in climate‑vulnerable states.
Buyers should factor in potential insurance cost hikes and check if properties remain insurable at a reasonable price.