Despite Growth in Home Sales, Contract Activity Slows

The housing market remains slow in early 2025, as high mortgage rates and economic uncertainty continue to affect affordability. Citing data from Bright MLS, National Mortgage Professional reports 13,000 homes were sold in January. Although this is an 8.5% increase from the previous year, this data likely reflect deals made at the end of 2024. In fact, new contract activity declined by 5.2% year-over-year to about 15,000 pending contracts.

"There is a lot of pent-up demand in the market, and many buyers who have been on the sidelines were hoping 2025 would be their year," stated Dr. Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS, in a release. "Economic uncertainty and affordability challenges are going to cause some of those buyers to put off their purchase until later in the year."

While high mortgage rates around 7% have contributed to a slow housing market to begin the year, “rates will likely come down this spring, but there could be a lot of volatility in the interest rates borrowers see,” according to Bright MLS’s report. Read more