Redfin Reports Monthly Housing Costs Hit All-Time High Amid Economic Uncertainty, Keeping Buyers on the Sidelines

May 01, 2025 at 08:00 AM EDT

Mortgage-purchase applications are declining and pending home sales are sluggish

(NASDAQ: RDFN) — The 2025 spring homebuying season is lackluster, with record-high housing costs and widespread economic instability keeping would-be homebuyers at bay, according to a new report from Redfin (redfin.com), the technology-powered real estate brokerage.

Mortgage-purchase applications are down 6% month over month, and Redfin’s Homebuyer Demand Index—a measure of tours and other buying services from Redfin agents—is essentially flat.

Pending home sales fell, too, declining 2.8% year over year nationwide during the four weeks ending April 27. That dip is mainly due to a holiday effect—Easter fell into this year’s four-week period, but not in the comparable period in 2024—but even without that effect, pending sales would likely be flat from a year ago. Sales were sluggish last spring, and they’re sluggish again this spring.

There are two key reasons a lot of prospective house hunters are staying on the sidelines:

Record-high housing costs. The median U.S. monthly housing payment is at an all-time high of $2,870, due to still-rising home prices and elevated mortgage rates.
Economic uncertainty. Many Americans are holding off on major purchases because they’re uncertain about the future of the economy due to things like tariffs and the increasing odds of a recession.

“A lot of people who would normally be making moves right now are standing still,” said Bliss Ong, a Redfin Premier agent in Seattle. “They want to ride out this period of economic uncertainty and wait until they feel more secure to make this huge financial decision. The people who are buying are picky; for instance, buyers aren’t making offers if a home is on a busy street, or if it has one bathroom instead of two bathrooms. When the market was hotter, those homes would fly off the shelves despite not checking every single box.”

Redfin agents in many parts of the country say they’re seeing more action from sellers than buyers. New listings are up 6.1% year over year, and the total number of homes for sale is up 13.7%.

For Redfin economists’ takes on the housing market, please visit Redfin’s “From Our Economists” page.

Leading indicators

Indicators of homebuying demand and activity
	Value (if applicable)	Recent change	Year-over-year change	Source
Daily average 30-year fixed mortgage rate	6.81% (April 30)	Down from 7.07% two weeks earlier	Down from 7.51%	Mortgage News Daily
Weekly average 30-year fixed mortgage rate	6.81% (week ending April 24)	Up from 6.62% two weeks earlier, but down slightly from one week earlier	Down from 7.17%	Freddie Mac
Mortgage-purchase applications (seasonally adjusted)		Down 4% from a week earlier (as of week ending April 25)	Up 3%	Mortgage Bankers Association
Redfin Homebuyer Demand Index (seasonally adjusted)		Essentially unchanged from a month earlier	Down 2%	A measure of home tours and other homebuying services from Redfin agents
Touring activity		Up 42% from the start of the year (as of April 30)	At this time last year, it was up 32% from the start of 2024	ShowingTime, a home touring technology company
Google searches for “home for sale”		Unchanged from a month earlier (as of April 28)	Up 8%	Google Trends

Key housing-market data

U.S. highlights: Four weeks ending April 27, 2025 Redfin’s national metrics include data from 400+ U.S. metro areas, and are based on homes listed and/or sold during the period. Weekly housing-market data goes back through 2015. Subject to revision.
	Four weeks ending April 27, 2025	Year-over-year change	Notes
Median sale price	$388,475	2%
Median asking price	$429,700	6.1%
Median monthly mortgage payment	$2,870 at a 6.81% mortgage rate	2.7%	Record high
Pending sales	87,876	-2.8%
New listings	107,229	6.1%
Active listings	1,055,784	13.7%	Smallest increase in over a year
Months of supply	4.1	+0.6 pts.	4 to 5 months of supply is considered balanced, with a lower number indicating seller’s market conditions
Share of homes off market in two weeks	39.9%	Down from 43%
Median days on market	39	+5 days
Share of homes sold above list price	27.1%	Down from 31%
Average sale-to-list price ratio	98.9%	Down from 99.3%

Metro-level highlights: Four weeks ending April 27, 2025 Redfin’s metro-level data includes the 50 most populous U.S. metros. Select metros may be excluded from time to time to ensure data accuracy.
	Metros with biggest year-over-year increases	Metros with biggest year-over-year decreases	Notes
Median sale price	Newark, NJ (11.3%) Milwaukee (10.3%) Cleveland (7.6%) New Brunswick, NJ (7.5%) Chicago (7.3%)	Oakland, CA (-5%) San Antonio (-3.5%) Phoenix (-2.9%) Austin, TX (-2.5%) Jacksonville, FL (-2.3%)	Declined in 9 metros
Pending sales	Columbus, OH (13.8%) Warren, MI (9.1%) Boston (8.5%) Indianapolis (6.2%) Detroit (5.9%)	Miami (-23.8%) Fort Lauderdale, FL (-19.5%) West Palm Beach, FL (-15.4%) Houston (-13.1%) Las Vegas (-13%)
New listings	Phoenix (20.3%) Washington, D.C. (15.6%) Baltimore (15%) Las Vegas (13.8%) Denver (12.8%)	Nassau County, NY (-7.4%) Newark, NJ (-5.5%) San Jose, CA (-5.3%) New York, NY (-5.1%) West Palm Beach, FL (-4.8%)

To view the full report, including charts, please visit:

https://www.redfin.com/news/housing-market-update-record-high-housing-costs-economic-uncertainty

About Redfin

Redfin (www.redfin.com) is a technology-powered real estate company. We help people find a place to live with brokerage, rentals, lending, and title insurance services. We run the country's #1 real estate brokerage site. Our customers can save thousands in fees while working with a top agent. Our home-buying customers see homes first with on-demand tours, and our lending and title services help them close quickly. Our rentals business empowers millions nationwide to find apartments and houses for rent. Since launching in 2006, we've saved customers more than $1.8 billion in commissions. We serve approximately 100 markets across the U.S. and Canada and employ over 4,000 people.

Redfin’s subsidiaries and affiliated brands include: Bay Equity Home Loans®, Rent.™, Apartment Guide®, Title Forward® and WalkScore®.

For more information or to contact a local Redfin real estate agent, visit www.redfin.com. To learn about housing market trends and download data, visit the Redfin Data Center. To be added to Redfin's press release distribution list, email press@redfin.com. To view Redfin's press center, click here.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250501764938/en/

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Redfin Reports Monthly Housing Costs Hit All-Time High Amid Economic Uncertainty, Keeping Buyers on the Sidelines

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