August 2025 Housing Market Update: Rates Fall, Price Corrections Spread

0:00Mortgage rates have dropped to their lowest level of 2025. Meanwhile, 50 % of markets are seeing price declines, but affordability is starting to increase. This could mean a buying opportunity or the start of a deeper correction. It's a rapidly shifting housing market right now, filled with opportunity, but also uncertainty. So today I'm going to help you make sense of it all. This is our August 2025 housing market update.

0:31Hey everyone, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer, housing analyst, investor, strategist, and today I'm bringing you our monthly housing market update. And oh man, we really need it this month because there is so much going on from rising inventory to new delinquency and foreclosure data to new price forecasts. We got a lot to get into because all of this stuff really does impact your decision making as an investor, from setting your strategy to building a buy box or deciding how you want to make an offer. All of that depends on having knowledge of current market conditions. So let's waste no more time and get into our housing market update.

1:15First up, we got to talk about mortgage rates, which have now dropped to our lowest level of 2025. As of this recording, mortgage rates are currently sitting for prime rate 30 or fixed rate mortgage around six and a half, 6.6%. Now, I'm sure that most people aren't feeling this huge sense of relief seeing mortgage rates at six and a half or 6.6%. Probably most people were expecting or at least hoping for bigger rate relief by this time in 2025. But it is significant because if you remember back to January, rates were actually at 7.1, 7.2%. So we actually are more than half a percentage point down, which does mean hundreds of dollars per month on the average mortgage.

2:03So that is pretty good. And then second of all, I'm not surprised by this. If you've been listening to the show, my mortgage rate forecasts have been that in 2025, mortgage rates were going to stay in the mid sixes. And so we're getting at least what I was expecting. Now, the last week or two has been encouraging because we saw kind of a big drop down from, you know, 6.75 to about 6.5. Again, nothing crazy, but it is moving in the direction I think most real estate investors want to see. And the reason that happened was mostly because of labor market data. And this is important because I think a lot of real estate investors, you look at the headline information, you maybe follow what the Fed is going to do.

2:46But last week, the Fed actually declined to cut rates, but rates actually still went down. So I just kind of want to take a minute to explain why that happened. Last week, a report came out, like it always does, showing how many jobs were added to the economy. And for the month of July, it was 73 ,000 jobs, which is still up, right? That's good. But it was less than the 104 ,000 that was expected. But actually, the biggest news that spooked the economy was these downward revisions for job numbers for May and June. When the BLS, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, initially released their data for May, they said there was 144 ,000 jobs created.

3:30And then they revised it and said, actually, no, it was just 19 ,000. A huge difference. Sort of the same thing happened in June, where they said 147 ,000 jobs were created. then they revised it this month and actually said, nope, it was 14 ,000. And a lot of people have a lot to say about these revisions. I just want to call out that these revisions have always happened. They are very frustrating. And, you know, as an analyst, someone who wants to forecast things, I wish they were accurate all the time, but this is always how it's worked. So why does this matter though? Why does this, these revisions and job numbers matter?

4:05Well, mortgage rates are dependent on the bond market and bond investors who are managing huge pools of money. These are like hedge funds, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, these big people controlling billions or trillions of dollars. When they start to get fearful about a recession, they take some of their money that they're managing and they want to put it into somewhere safe, right? They want to find a safe place to put it. And that is often in U.S. treasuries, bonds that are issued by the U.S. government. And when that happens, the demand for new bonds pushes down bond yields. That means the government doesn't have to pay as much to borrow money.

4:43And that's a good thing for the government. And it's also a good thing for real estate investors because that means that people who are taking out mortgages don't need to pay as much to borrow money as well. So mortgage rates come down when there is this fear of recession. And when there are bad job numbers or revisions to job data that indicate a recession could be coming, that typically pushes down mortgage rates. And that's exactly what we saw. Generally, investors saw this as a weak labor report, while at the same time, tensions about the economy are already generally pretty high. I think people have worries about how high interest rates are and how they've been high for a long time.

5:21People are fearful about the inflationary impacts of tariffs. I think a lot of people are fearful about AI and how that's going to disrupt the labor market. And so all these things sort of combined to mildly, again, this isn't crazy, but like mildly increase the risk of recession that brought mortgage rates down. So this is good news for anyone who wants to participate in the housing market in the short run. And I have been saying it to people through the last couple of days, but if you are looking to buy right now could be a good time to lock in a mortgage rate because while it could be the start of a trend, and I think for most real estate investors, they would hope that this is the start of a downward trend.

6:04I personally wouldn't plan on that. And I still do think that could happen, but I think a lot of people in this industry right now are underestimating the chance that mortgage rates stay high for the foreseeable future. I'm not saying forever, but for the rest of 2025, I think we're going to see mortgage rates fluctuate a lot from somewhere around the mid sixes, maybe even up to seven. But I would be very surprised if we saw anything under a six in 2025. And this is regardless, honestly, of what happens with the Fed. I know the Fed is in the news a lot right now about their decisions not to cut rates here in July.

6:44The money, you know, people who bet on this kind of stuff do believe that there is going to be a rate cut this fall. I agree with that. I think we'll see at least one 25 basis point cut sometime this fall. But my prediction about mortgage rates staying somewhere in the sixes, probably in the mid or even higher sixes, is sort of regardless of what the Fed does. Because as we've talked about on the show, and I just want to remind people, the Fed does not control mortgage rates. They control the federal funds rate, which influences short-term borrowing costs, not the type of long-term borrowing costs that you need for a mortgage.

7:20It is one factor in mortgage rates, but they are not directly correlated. We saw this last September, right? The Fed cut rates twice last fall and mortgage rates shot up. They were around 6 % last August, about a year ago. And they cut rates in September and then in November. And by January, rates were back up to 7.2%. And so I just want to call out that what you should be paying attention to if you want to know what's going on with mortgage rates is yields on bonds, not what the Fed does. And again, just for actionable insights here for our BiggerPockets community, if you are looking to buy, I wouldn't be holding out and waiting for a lower rate if you want to buy in the next three to six months.

8:04I would jump on opportunities when we see these dips in mortgage rates like we're seeing right now, because they could be back at 6.7 % in a week. They could be at 6.9 % in two months. We don't know. And if you find deals that work with these rates and you just got a little bit of break, you just got a quarter point cut, I would jump on those kinds of things if you have a great deal lined up. And you probably all know this, but I have always been a big detractor. I do not like the idea of date the rate, marry the house. And I just want to reemphasize this, that even though I'm saying that if you have a good deal lined up and it works with these rates, that's great.

8:43but I would not ever recommend anyone buy a deal assuming that mortgage rates are going to go down. If your deal does not work with the mortgage rate that you are going to buy it with, do not buy that deal. It is not worth it. Otherwise, you are betting on something you have absolutely no control over. And as a real estate investor, that's just an unnecessary risk. Just don't buy something that only works if rates go down. Find a deal that works with today's rates, take advantage of these little dips, but be disciplined about what you buy. Last thing I want to say about this is I know that people want lower rates.

9:18I wish rates were lower too, but just want to also call out the fact that what we've seen here, the reason rates have come down in just the last couple of weeks is because people are generally more fearful about recession than they were two weeks ago. And again, these are modest changes, but I just want to call that out. And the only way I think we see really significant declines in mortgage rates is if the economy really starts to falter. And I'm not talking about these kinds of like sort of weak labor data. I'm talking about big increases in unemployment rates, stuff that we haven't really seen evidence of right now.

9:52But I just want to call out that there's a tradeoff here, right? You might get lower mortgage rates in those instances, but you could have a much weaker economy. So I think it's important to sort of temper your expectations and what you're rooting for here because I think it's going to be tough to get super low mortgage rates right now without economic hardship. And obviously we don't want economic hardship. So I think a slower, more modest decline in mortgage rates is the most likely scenario and is probably the most beneficial scenario to the economy as a whole. All right. So that's the first major trend I want to make sure everyone is aware of that mortgage rates have dropped to their lowest rate of 2025.

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14:53Welcome back to the Bigger Pockets podcast. I'm Dave Meyer giving you our August 2025 housing market update. Before the break, we talked about how mortgage rates have reached their lowest rate since 2025. Good news for our community here at BiggerPockets. But we have to cover the next major story, which is the fact that we are entering a buyer's market. A lot of markets across the country are now in corrections. there is risk. I will give you my opinion in a little bit that the national housing market will turn negative by the end of the year. So we got to dive into what's happening on the price and inventory front.

15:33And just so everyone knows, the reason we talk about inventory and pricing together is that they are so closely related. When inventory goes up relative demand, prices tend to go down because there's basically more properties for sale at a given point than there are buyers and the sellers have to compete for their buyers by lowering their prices. When there is lower inventory relative demand, prices tend to go up. So that's why we talk about these things together. But let's talk about the big picture here. Generally, the big trend that you can see is that appreciation is slowing down everywhere.

16:07The markets that were in decline are seeing probably a little bit bigger declines. The markets that are growing might still be growing, but they're just growing at a slower rate. And we're seeing this in almost every market in the country. There are very, very few metro areas where we are seeing price growth accelerate. So that's the really big picture. And getting back to my explanation earlier about inventory, the reason that this is happening is because there is more inventory. We are seeing in the markets that are declining, and even the ones that are growing, but just growing more slowly, that relative to the number of buyers, there's just more and more homes for sale.

16:50And again, this just creates competition for buyers. And that means some sellers are going to have to lower their prices. This pushes prices for that entire market down. Just to give you an idea of the scale of this, at least we'll start on a national level. Active listings, which is a measure of inventory, basically the number of homes that are for sale in any given week or month, According to Redfin, they're up 9 % year over year. And that is a pretty solid number. But again, I just want to call out this is not sort of emergency numbers. Seeing inventory go up 9 % year over year is not super surprising to me.

17:28That's kind of what I think most people who follow this stuff have been expecting for the last couple of years, is that eventually things were going to go back closer at least to pre-pandemic levels. And that's sort of what we're approaching. Now, of course, the supply question sort of has to be relative to demand. And I think this is the part that surprises a lot of people who are not obsessively watching the housing market like I am. But demand for housing is actually up year over year, too. I know that's surprising because you probably see this in the news or in social media where people are like, oh, there's no buyers.

18:03No one wants to buy a home. That is not true. We actually see modestly higher by a few percentage points demand for homes. as measured by the number of people applying for mortgages is actually up year over year. And this is why this is one of the reasons we'll talk about this more. But this is one of the reasons why, although prices are correcting in a lot of markets, why we're not seeing this wholesale crash in the market. It's because, yeah, more people are selling, but also people still want to buy. They still want to get into the housing market. Demand is low compared to historical periods, but compared to the last few years, it's actually not changed that much.

18:42And that's why it's the change in supply and demand dynamics that really matter. And we're just not seeing that big a change in demand right now. Now, if you want to understand which way this is going to go, because I imagine most people listening to this are thinking, okay, prices right now, they are up nationally about 2%. So that's about the pace of inflation. They are down a little bit in inflation adjusted terms from their peak back in 2022 or so. You know, that's mostly kind of flat, nothing super crazy. But I would imagine everyone, myself included, want to know where prices are going to go in the future.

19:18Is this going to spread to even more markets? Are we going to see an accelerating correction that gets worse and worse and worse? Or are we going to see sort of a normal market cycle where prices tend to go down a little bit. Then they find a bottom. There's some stimulus, maybe mortgage rates come down, and then prices start to go up again and go through an expansion. That's a normal market cycle. So which one is this? Is this a correction or is this the start of a full-blown crash like a lot of very loud people have been calling for for many years? Well, there are a couple of different data sets I wanted to share with you because I would imagine a lot of the headlines, a lot of other people who are talking about crashes and what's going on in the market are not really looking at data.

20:04They're probably subscribing to this what goes up must come down theory. That is nonsense. That doesn't make any sense. What you actually have to do is look at the underlying fundamentals and trends in the market, and I'm going to share those with you right now. The first data set we need to look at is something called new listings. Now, this sounds very similar to active listings or inventory, but there's a crucial difference here. Active listings is the number of homes that are for sale at a given point in time. And because of that, it's actually not just a reflection of how many people are listing their properties for sale, but also how quickly they are coming off the market.

20:43In order to understand just the number of properties that are hitting the market, we need to look at a different metric that is called new listings. And this is sort of a fascinating chart right now. Well, at least I find it fascinating. I'll explain to you what it all means, but I think it's really interesting. For most of this year, 2025, what we've been seeing is that new listings was going up. So we were seeing 5%, 7%, 10 % increases year over year. That means more people were choosing to sell their home. But then something happened around May or June where actually people decided they didn't want to sell their home.

21:23Instead of being up 10, 9, 8 % year over year, we're actually down to just 0.5 % growth year over year. Basically, for all intents and purposes, it is now flat. We are seeing the same number of new listings going on the market as we did at this point last year. And this is super important because what so many people who are screaming about a housing market crash are missing is they have this assumption that the second that inventory starts to climb, that it's going to keep climbing forever and ever and ever. And we're going to see this unlimited number of new homes hit the market and there's going to be no buyers and the market is going to crash.

22:06But what normally happens in a housing market correction, in a normal business cycle, sellers, yeah, they're getting uneasy, they start to sell their home, they need to sell their home for whatever. But at a certain point, they might look around and see, hey, we're in a buyer's market right now. I'm not getting the price that I want to get. I'm going to have to offer concessions. This isn't going to go the way I want it to. So you know what? I am not going to sell my home right now. And clearly, to me, that is starting to happen because we are seeing this decline in year-over-year new listings.

22:41And I think when you start to look at the regional data, it tells a really compelling story. I grabbed some data from Redfin that shows the regions that have the fastest home price growth and the slowest. So when you look at the fastest year-over-year increases, we see Cleveland right now, 15 % growth. That's enormous. Montgomery County, Pennsylvania at 9%, Nassau County, New York at 9%, Detroit at 7%, Indianapolis at 7 % as well. Now, if we look at the properties with the fastest growing new listings, we see Seattle, so not on the first list, Philadelphia, not on the first list, but we see Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and Cleveland, followed by Minneapolis.

23:24So why would this happen, right? Why would new listings be up in the cities where things are going well? Well, because it's going well for sellers. If you could sell your home in Nassau County at 9 % more than you got last year, that's a pretty good selling proposition. So if you were on the fence about selling your home, you're probably going to do it because selling conditions are really good. When you look over to the other side of the equation, where metros are seeing the biggest declines, the list, top five, Oakland, California, West Palm Beach, Jacksonville, Austin, and Houston. When we go to see where new listings are down, we see similar patterns here.

24:04It's not the exact same, but we see Tampa and Portland. Then we see Jacksonville, Orlando, Sacramento. So why would this happen? Well, in the markets where prices are decreasing, I think a lot of sellers who are on the fence about selling their home are choosing not to sell their home because they can't get the price that they want. And if they are not forced to sell, they are choosing not to sell. And this is a really important dynamic going on the housing market right now. I am not saying that prices are not going to decline nationally. I think we're in this for a little while. I think we're going to see more corrections.

24:41But if you want to understand the direction things are going and if there's going to be a bottom soon or if this is going to turn into a full-blown crash, the fact that new listings is starting to decline at the time you would expect them to start to decline indicates to me it's at least one data point to me that shows that this is probably more of a normal market cycle than a crash. Now, of course, there are other things that go into whether or not a market is going to crash. And for that, we need to look to another data set, which is delinquencies and foreclosures, because this is one of those things that could really come in and mess up the entire housing market.