Home prices remained steady and buyers had more time to make decisions as the number of homes on the market continued to climb compared with last year, according to Realtor.com® weekly housing data.
New listing growth rose again from last week. It trailed behind what we’ve seen year to date and will be an important indicator to watch as regional real estate trends diverge.
Recent home price trends caused a dip in the value of household real estate from prior quarters, but the value of homes is still higher than one year ago, totaling $47.9 trillion.
Combined with rising mortgage debt, this also meant a drop in home equity in the first quarter, but a gain relative to the prior year. As a share of today’s total housing value, equity remains close to long-term highs, reflecting the strong position of today’s homeowners in aggregate. The picture for individual homeowners can and will vary.
The Federal Reserve came out of its two days of meetings letting Americans know it’s keeping its policy rate steady in June—with a current rate of 4.25% to 4.5%. Even as inflation data improved, a still healthy labor market enabled the Fed to wait and see how tariffs may affect price trends.
In response to a question from a reporter, Chairman Jerome Powell stated, “The best thing we can do for the housing market is to restore price stability in a sustainable way and create a strong labor market” with the end goal in mind. The Fed’s new projections revealed a modest downgrade to economic growth and a slight uptick in unemployment and inflation through 2027. The median expectation for the policy rate is unchanged for 2025, consistent with two quarter-point rate cuts by the end of the year. This means that the Fed’s policy rate could drop below 4% by December.
In the mortgage market, rates on a 30-year fixed loan dropped for a third straight week. But again, the improvement was fairly modest, keeping rates relatively high.
