Existing-home sales retreat, prices keep rising

Existing-home sales continue to give off mixed signals. The pricing trend remains sunny: The median home sale price for April was $414,000, the highest April median on record. But April 2025 home sales slowed to an annual pace of just 4.0 million, the slowest number for the month since the dark days of April 2009, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reports.

“It’s not a good start to the spring homebuying season,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun.

Yun pointed to mortgage rates as a headwind: The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose from a low of 6.2 percent in September 2024 to above 7 percent in early 2025. It stood at 6.95 percent as of May 21, according to Bankrate’s weekly survey of large lenders.

With home prices historically high, affordability challenges remain daunting for homebuyers. Lower mortgage rates would relieve some of that pain: “Pent-up housing demand continues to grow, though not realized. Any meaningful decline in mortgage rates will help release this demand,” Yun said. But lower rates also could lure more buyers into the market, further fueling prices.

“The fate of the housing market in the coming months will be dictated in part by the direction of mortgage rates, as well as the health of the broader economy,” says Mark Hamrick, Bankrate’s senior economic analyst. “The market could benefit from a combination of tailwinds, if they were to develop and are sustained.”

Existing-home sales down from both last month and last year

The count of existing-home sales incorporates all completed resales, including single-family houses, condos, townhouses and co-ops. According to NAR, the number of sales nationally fell from the previous month to an annual pace of 4.0 million transactions in April.

In April, existing-home sales in the Northeast fell 2 percent from March to an annual rate of 480,000, identical to last year. In the Midwest, sales rose 2.1 percent in April to an annual rate of 970,000, down 1 percent from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the South held steady at an annual rate of 1.81 million, unchanged from last year. And in the West, sales retreated to an annual rate of 740,000, down 1.3 percent from a year ago.

Days on market

Properties typically stayed on the market for 29 days in April, down substantially from 36 days in March. Selling times are a crucial measure at any time of year, but especially during the peak spring and summer selling seasons.

Home prices still historically high

The nationwide median sale price for existing homes in April was $414,000 — the highest-ever price for the month. While that’s slightly below June 2024’s all-time high of $426,900, it’s still an increase of 1.8 percent from last year. This marks 22 consecutive months of year-over-year price increases.

Regionally, prices were mixed. March’s median price in the Northeast was $487,400, a 6.3 percent increase from a year ago. The median in the Midwest was $313,300, up 3.6 percent year-over-year.

In the South, the median was $365,300, down 0.1 percent from last year. And while the West continues to have the highest median price by far at $628,500, that’s down 0.2 percent from April 2024.

First-time homebuyers made up 34 percent of sales in April, an improvement over the all-time low of 26 percent in August and September. Cash sales ed for 25 percent of transactions in April, down from 26 percent in March.

Supply again improves year-over-year

The inventory of unsold existing homes jumped 9 percent from the previous month to 1.45 million at the end of April, or the equivalent of 4.4 months’ supply at the current monthly sales pace. That’s a healthy 20.8 percent increase from a year ago. But, while buyers are gaining bargaining power, inventory still remains a bit below the 5 or 6 months typically considered the mark of a balanced market.

“We are very close to balanced market conditions,” Yun said. He expects housing inventories to continue to rise this spring, hitting perhaps 1.6 million homes for sale by the end of the spring.