Presenting the January 2025 edition of Compass Insights, featuring national real estate market data, and key economic trends across the U.S.

Highlights:

• After significantly declining in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2024, the average mortgage interest rate bounced back up in the last 4 months.
• Annual, median, existing-house sales prices, but annual condo/co-op prices also increased. Note that median sales prices can be affected by other factors besides changes in fair market value. For example, if affluent buyers increase their percentage share of homes purchased, as they did in 2024, that will help pull median prices up simply because they buy more expensive homes.
• Due to trends in population migration, new-home construction, and housing affordability, the southern region of the country has been dominating home sales in recent years.
• Over the shorter term, annual appreciation changes can vary significantly between regions, but over the longer term, regional rates generally move roughly in parallel, affected by the same major macroeconomic conditions.
• 2024 saw a significant rebound from 2023 in the number of new listings, but the count remained far down from long-term standards - with considerable impact on supply and demand dynamics. Many would-be sellers are still holding off, reluctant to trade a low interest rate loan for a much higher rate on a new home. Of course, this does not apply to the increasing percentage of buyers who pay all-cash, and high levels of home equity and soaring stock markets are big factors in this trend.
• The monthly, average number of homes for sale rose substantially in 2024 to its highest point in 4 years, but didn't compare with norms before the pandemic hit.
• Impacted by a number of factors, total sales volume remained very low in 2024. Sales did not keep pace with the increase in listings, creating a cooling effect on national market conditions, though median sales prices still rose. (How any of these national trends apply to specific markets and market segments can vary widely.)
• New listings typically hit its nadir in December, and climb quickly to peak in late spring or early summer.
• Seaonality in demand: Monthly sales volumes closely follow new-listing activity. Note that some markets see different trends: For example, in big second-home markets, sales can peak during vacation months.
• In the last 12-month period measured, all but a few states saw population increases, including those which had seen significant previous declines - their recent increases being mostly due to foreign immigration - but the highest growth states generally remained the same since 2021.
• The crisis in homeowner's insurance availability and cost has been widely reported. Unfortunately, 2024 was a bad year for natural disasters, and 2025 has had a sad, terrible beginning. 

For the full report CLICK HERE