Existing-Home Sales Retreat Amid Record Prices

The Good Brigade/Getty Images; Illustration by Grant Crowder/Bankrate

Existing-home sales continue to give off mixed signals. March 2025 home sales slowed to an annual pace of just 4.02 million, the slowest number for the month since the dark days of March 2009, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reports. But the pricing trend remains sunny: The median home sale price for March was $403,700, the highest March median on record.

“This is a little disappointing,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “I thought more inventory would lead to more sales, but that’s not the case.”

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 6.86 percent as of April 23, 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 — but they 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 up from last month, down from 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 increased from the previous month to an annual pace of 4.02 million transactions in March.

February’s existing-home sales in the Northeast decreased 2 percent from February to an annual rate of 490,000. That’s unchanged from March 2024. In the Midwest, sales fell to an annual rate of 950,000, down 3.1 percent from a year ago.

Existing-home sales in the South contracted to an annual rate of 1.81 million, down 4.2 percent from one year before. And the West saw an annual rate of 770,000 deals, down 1.3 percent from a year ago.

Days on market

Properties typically stayed on the market for 36 days in March, down from 42 days in February but up from 33 days in March 2024. Selling times are a crucial measure at any time of year, but especially during the peak spring and summer selling seasons.

Home prices still high

The nationwide median sale price for existing homes in March was $403,700 — the highest-ever price for the month, according to Yun. That’s below June 2024’s all-time high of $426,900, mostly because of seasonality, but it’s still an increase of 2.7 percent from last year. This marks 21 straight months of year-over-year price increases.

Regionally, the median price in the Northeast was $468,000, a 7.7 percent increase from a year ago. The median price in the Midwest was $302,100, up 3.5 percent from March 2024.

In the South, the median was $360,400, up 0.6 percent from last year. And the West continues to have the highest median price at $621,200, up 2.6 percent from March 2024.

First-time homebuyers made up 32 percent of sales in March, an improvement over the all-time low of 26 percent in August and September. Cash sales accounted for 26 percent of transactions in March, down from 32 percent in February.

Supply again improves year-over-year

The inventory of unsold existing homes jumped 8.1 percent from the previous month to 1.33 million at the end of March, or the equivalent of 4.0 months’ supply at the current monthly sales pace. While buyers are gaining bargaining power, inventory remains a bit below the 5 or 6 months typically considered the mark of a balanced market.

Yun expects housing inventories to continue to rise this spring, hitting perhaps 1.6 million homes for sale by the end of the spring.