Existing Home Sales March 2025: Inventory and Prices Higher, Sales Lower

Back to weak sales volumes on existing home sales with prices and inventory both higher and mortgages stubborn.

Apr 24, 2025

Am I the only bidder?

With existing home sales for March off by -5.9% MoM and -2.4% YoY and inventories up +8.1% MoM and +19.8% YoY, the fact that prices were up sequentially and YoY to $403.7K underscores how challenged the existing home sales market remains.
Single family sales were down by -6.4% MoM and -2.2% YoY, inventories were +6.5% MoM and +18.6% YoY, and prices rose sequentially and by +2.9% YoY to $408.0K.
Across the 6 price tiers, we see the three highest price tiers posting higher sales, the largest price tier ($250K to $500K) flat, and the two lowest price tiers with negative volume growth in a continued sign of the times as the mortgage squeeze and affordability pressures remain the reality.

The above chart shows the sales deltas by price tier with the 3 highest price tiers higher, one flat at 0%, and the 2 lowest price tiers posting negative growth. The $250K to $500K tier accounts for just under 45% of the market, and that showed no growth.

That trend line is not out of the ordinary with the volumes rising in the tiers where buyers are less likely to get squeezed out based on mortgage qualifications and monthly payment stress. That is a pattern we have seen frequently over the past year and seems likely to remain a factor with high 6% mortgage rates and higher prices.

The above chart shows the geographic mix of volumes and details on price mix by region. The South is the main event in single family volumes whether new or used at almost 45% of volumes for single family existing.

For the bar chart, we break out the mix for each region by price tier. For example, the South shows over 52% of its existing home sales volume in the $250k to $500K bracket and almost 16% of its sales in the $500 to $750K bucket. The bars for each region add up to 100% (occasionally a rounding miss!). The high cost of homes in the West (notably California) is clear enough in the West price mix just by glancing at the bar chart with 21% in prices over $1 million. The second highest in the $1 million club is the Northeast at almost 10%.

We see a big concentration in the $250K to $500K bracket for all regions at almost 45% of the total and a heavy weighting in the $100K to $250K bracket for the Midwest at almost 34%. The map explains what states are in each Census region, and there is a wide range of home price profiles in the West and Midwest.

Inventory rose on the month by +8.1% sequentially to 1.33 million for total existing homes. The YoY increase is +19.8%. The existing home inventory trend is back to climbing off the sub-1 million lows of 2022-2023. Inventory had risen into the 1.3 million handle range in 2024 before dipping back down to a recent low of 1.14 million to close out the year. We see the Feb 2022 lows at 850K above when demand was very high just before the tightening cycle kicked into gear in March 2022. Separately, single family home inventory is up by +18.6% YoY and +6.5% sequentially.

The above two-sided chart updates the trend line in total existing home sales vs. new single family homes. With mortgage rates in the high 6% range again and Freddie Mac’s benchmark set at 6.81% today at noon, the affordability headwinds remain alive. Color from the homebuilders in some recent earnings reports signal that the mortgage buydowns and incentives have not been as effective in the new home sales market even as the existing home sales markets are still seeing a gap between what the seller wants and how the buyer sees the world. That in turn continues to undermine transaction volume. We see a continued rise in inventory and higher median prices, which shows that the existing home sales market remains in somewhat of a state of dysfunction.

The above chart breaks out the timeline for single family alone of 3.64 million vs. total existing home sales of 4.02 million, which is well below the long-term median (from Jan 1999) of 5.23 million for total existing homes. Single family was -6.4% sequentially and -2.2% YoY. The lower line is ex-condo/ex-co-ops. We saw 380K in condos and co-ops in March 2025, down from 400K in March 2024 (revised).

The above chart updates the median price for existing single family homes at $408.0K. Though down from the June 2024 high of $432.9K, the median price remains well above the $308K back in Jan 2021 and $277K in Dec 2019 when mortgage rates were in a different zip code.

Potential sellers and buyers had some recent mortgage relief in the low 6% range in late Sept and early Oct before mortgage rates pushed back to the 7% area. We saw 6.81% posted by Freddie Mac’s benchmark earlier today, but north of 6.9% in Mortgage News Daily.

The above chart updates the monthly existing home sales across the timeline from Jan 2022 through Jan 2025. The market is a long way from the mid-6 and high 5 million handles of 2021 and then into early 2022 when many homeowners refinanced, and new buyers locked in low mortgages. ZIRP ended in March 2022 and then the UST migration began.

The March 2025 total of 4.02 million is slightly below the May 2020 COVID trough of 4.07, so there are not too many bragging rights in current run rates. We had a few more sub-4 million handles along the way as noted in the chart, so this has been a brutal period for brokers.

The above chart revisits the topical area addressed earlier on the existing home sales deltas by price tier. The largest tier is the $250K to $500K bucket at almost 45% of sales volumes, and that was flat at 0.0% in a month that is supposed to mark the uptick expected in the spring selling seasons. There have been lower months in recent periods but this one caught headlines as the lowest March since March 2009, which was the S&P 500 low and a period when the world was seeing GE Capital treated like a high-risk name and the market was about see major bankruptcies in autos.

The challenge for the lower tier buyer is evident in the decline of -4.2% in the $100K to $250K tier that comprises 18.6% of total volume. The $500K to $750K tier is over 18% of the market and rose by a muted +3.8% this month. We see the $1+ million market rise by just under 14% this month in a sign of the times. The highest price tier is 8.3% of the market.

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