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Real EstateMar 1, 2025

Pending Home Sales Fall To New All-Time Low As New US Home Sale Prices Hit Record in January

Affordability Crisis

Noah Weidner

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There might be no place like home — even more so if you live in one of America’s hottest housing markets — but most Americans will have to settle for apartment living so long as prices are this high. That’s well-understood by would-be buyers, including ones who are swearing off homeownership altogether. But on the other end of the deal, current homeowners are learning about this mismatch the hard way.

This week, pending home sales fell to a new all-time low as buyer appetite continued to dwindle — a product of expensive borrowing costs and a dearth of affordable housing.
The report comes after the median sales price of a US home hit $419.2K in the fourth quarter — the median for new US homes hit a record $446.3K in January, per HUD.

Something’s gotta give: There has been downward momentum in the sale price of used homes, which fell below $400K in Jan. 2025. Still, that was 4.83% higher than in Jan. 2024. In general, homeowners aren’t amenable to selling their homes for less than what they think they’re worth — even as fewer and fewer Americans are willing to buy.

Is there any way out? With nine months of inventory on the market, the supply of homes isn’t the problem — the location and affordability are. Matters could even further worsen, given recession developments. And worsening matters, developers could be sidelined too, given hints of weaker demand — a record 106K single-family homes that were approved still had yet to be built, per Reuters.