April 18, 2025
- The Realtor.com® economics team weekly video update gives you the relevant economic and real estate information you need to know each week every Friday to navigate the housing market as a homebuyer, home seller, or industry professional.
- For the week ending April 18, Realtor.com® Senior Economist Joel Berner discusses the Best Time to Sell, this very week, when increased buyer activity and decreased seller competition leads to higher home sales prices.
- In keeping with the focus on sellers, you’ll also hear about the results of our seller survey, which showed some optimism from sellers despite the market headwinds.
- We cover this week’s market data, which showed listing prices holding steady while inventory and time on market grow.
- Mortgage rates picked up this week, find out why and where they’re likely to go next.
- We talk tariffs and how they impact builders, focusing on the March release of new construction data.
- Finally you’ll hear about our monthly rent report, which showed yet another month of rent declines. However, with a trade war looming, we also show that this trend is in jeopardy due to increased costs of multifamily construction.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Hi, I’m Joel Berner, Senior Economist at Realtor.com filling in for Chief Economist Danielle Hale. Welcome to our official Best Time to Sell! This week, the week of April 13th-19th, has been identified by our research team as the best week of the year to sell a home because it combines high levels of buyer activity with higher sales prices and less competition from other sellers, so be sure to get your home out there as we enter the peak of the real estate market season.
In fact, our recent seller survey found that 70% of sellers believe now is a good time to sell a home and 81% expect to get their asking price or higher when they do sell. With the share of homes on the market with price reductions sitting at about 18%, we think this is a reasonable expectation for sellers to have. Our survey also found that 55% of sellers who have been planning to sell for a year or more feel locked in by their current lower mortgage rate, and as we’ll see later in the video, this problem is likely not going away. Nevertheless, life happens, and 79% of sellers are making a move out of necessity rather than market opportunity.
This week’s market data readout showed the median listing price at a national level holding steady, while new and active for-sale inventory are growing significantly and picking up pace from last week. It has now been 75 consecutive weeks where active listings have grown year over year, as the long slow recovery from the post-pandemic buying frenzy continues years later. Time on market also increased from last year, by 4 days, as more active listings combine with a slower pace of sales to keep homes on the market longer.
A major factor in the slower pace of the market is mortgage rates, and this week the Freddie Mac rate for a 30-year fixed rate mortgage jumped 21 basis points to 6.83%. This came on the heels of the 10-year Treasury yield’s acceleration due to the market volatility created by the Trump administration’s tariff announcements. The Treasury yield has cooled off in the past few days, which may soften the upward pressure on mortgage rates in coming weeks, but tariff-induced inflation could keep rates elevated in the long run.
Tariffs don’t just impact the financial markets, they create additional costs for home builders that exacerbate the home affordability crisis the country is experiencing. March new construction data, released this week but covering the period before the tariff announcements, was a mixed bag. Starts and completions slowed from February while permits picked up. Some of the retreat in starts could be attributed to tariff threats that were made in March or earlier causing uncertainty among builders, but we expect more significant pullbacks in the coming months of data due to tariffs levied against Canadian lumber in early April.
Lumber isn’t the only commodity subject to new tariffs from the Trump administration that impacts housing. 25% tariffs on imported steel and aluminum will make multifamily construction projects more expensive, and that cost will be passed along to renters. The March rent report was released this week, and while it marked a 20th consecutive month of year over year rent declines, it also calls out that the rental market is subject to the performance of multifamily construction. Without more new units coming on line, rents will return to rising amid a supply pinch in the years to come.
You can find all the details, including full reports and our housing data for download, at realtor.com/research. You can also follow us on X (formerly twitter) for real time updates. And instagram for graphics.
Subscribe to our mailing list to receive monthly updates and notifications on the latest data and research.