US Home Relistings Hit Record High (Delistings Soared In 2025 After Sellers Outnumbered Buyers)

Housing market woes continue. All the day and all the night.

Around 45,000 homes that were delisted in 2025 were back on the market in January – marking the highest relisting numbers since 2016 when Redfin began tracking.

Delistings soared in 2025 after sellers began to outnumber buyers, and decided to take their homes off the market to take another bite at the apple this spring. Overall delistings hit a record high of 112,788 in December, while relistings this year represented 3.6% of all homes on the market.

Supply gains have been concentrated in the South and West, particularly among homes priced under $500,000. While the Northeast and Midwest have seen some growth, they are still lagging behind the other regions.

As of February, active listings climbed by 7.9 percent year over year, reaching 914,860 homes across the nation for sale. A little more than 7 percent of those listings resulted in contract cancellations—down slightly from the same time in 2025.

An analysis of the country’s 50 largest markets showed sharp increases in inventory in Seattle, with a 38.5 percent hike, as well as Louisville, Kentucky, 27.3 percent higher, and San Jose, with nearly 25 percent more homes on the market.

On the other side, Hartford, Connecticut, experienced the deepest drop in inventory at over 82 percent, as well as Providence, Rhode Island, at 61.1 percent.

Overall, homes spent a median of 70 days on the market in February, four days longer than a year earlier.

Typical Homeowner Stays In Home For 12 Years, Up From 6.5 Years In 2006 (Average Effective Mortgage Life Is Only 5-7 Years)

People are staying in their homes longer now than in 2006. 12 years now versus 6.5 years in 2006.

The average effective mortgage life is 5-7 years,

12 years in the same home makes housing policy more difficult to implement.

US Existing Home Sales Collapse In January (Down 4.6% MoM In January, Largest Drop Since February 2022)

After managing a 1.4% YoY rise in 2025 (dramatically down from the 9.7% YoY rise in 2024, and 33% YoY collapse in 2023), US existing home sales were expected to drop 4.6% MoM in January (following December’s outsized 5.1% MoM surge), despite a tumble in mortgage rates.

The analysts were correct on the direction but wrong on the scale as existing home sales plunged 8.4% MoM in January from a downwardly revised +4.4% MoM in December. That is the biggest MoM drop since February 2022.

While some suggested this could be impacted by the Winter Storms, this is based on contracts signed in November/December… and the biggest decline was in The West (which had zero weather impact)

Nevertheless, realtors gonna realtor:

“The below-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation this January make it harder than usual to assess the underlying driver of the decrease and determine if this month’s numbers are an aberration,” NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement.

That MoM plunge pulled the total SAAR down near 15 year lows…

Without an extended period of improved affordability, the recovery in the housing market is likely to be prolonged.

The NAR report showed the median selling price rose 0.9% from a year earlier to $396,800 last month.

First-time buyers represented 31% of buyers of existing homes in January, up slightly from 29% in the prior month and higher than a year ago.

The inventory of previously owned homes increased 3.4% in January from a year ago to 1.22 million.

A pickup in supply through 2025 has helped to tame price growth, though Yun said on a call with reporters that listings need to increase much more to help improve sales.

On the bright side, it appears mortgage applications are rebounding as the year started with lower rates…

Source: Bloomberg

Arguably, existing home sales have much further to go to the upside as the lagged mortgage rate has continued to decline… so what triggered this collapse?

Source: Bloomberg

Finally, circling back to where we started, NAR expects home sales to rise a stunning 14% this year, higher than most other forecasts but a figure that NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said he feels “confident” in. That assumes more inventory will come on the market, mortgage rates will hover around 6% and the Fed will cut interest rates another two times, compared to policymakers’ median projection for one.

Keep On Printing? National House Price Index Up 1.4% year-over-year in November As M2 Money Growth Slows

Keep on printing money. It seems that home price growth requires The Fed to keep printing money.

S&P/Case-Shiller released the monthly Home Price Indices for November (“November” is a 3-month average of September, October and November closing prices). September closing prices include some contracts signed in July, so there is a significant lag to this data. Here is a graph of the month-over-month (MoM) change in the Case-Shiller National Index Seasonally Adjusted (SA).

From S&P S&P Cotality Case-Shiller Index Reports Annual Gain In November 2025

The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index posted a 1.4% annual gain for November, in line with the previous month.

Real home values declined as consumer inflation (2.7%) outpaced the National Index gain (1.4%) by 1.3 percentage points.

Regional divergence persisted: Midwestern and Northeastern markets led by Chicago (+5.7%) and New York (+5.0%) posted gains, while Sun Belt cities including Tampa (–3.9%), Phoenix (–1.4%), Dallas (–1.4%), and Miami (–1.0%) saw declines.
…
“Regional patterns continue to illustrate a stark divergence. Chicago leads all cities for a second consecutive month with a 5.7% year-over-year price increase, followed by New York at 5.0% and Cleveland at 3.4%. These historically steady Midwestern and Northeastern markets have maintained respectable gains even as overall conditions cool. By contrast, Tampa home prices are 3.9% lower than a year ago – the steepest decline among the 20 cities, extending that market’s 13-month streak of annual drops. Other Sun Belt boomtowns remain under pressure as well: Phoenix (-1.4%), Dallas (-1.4%), and Miami (-1.0%) each continue to see year-over-year declines, a dramatic turnaround from their pandemic-era strength.

“Monthly price changes were mixed but leaned negative in November, underscoring persistent softness. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, 15 of the 20 major metro areas saw prices decline from October (versus 16 declines in the previous month). Only a handful of markets – including Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, New York, and Phoenix – eked out slight gains before seasonal adjustment. After accounting for typical seasonal slowing, the National Index inched up just 0.4% for the month, indicating that price momentum remains muted.
…
The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 1.4% annual gain for November. The 10-City Composite showed an annual increase of 2.0%, up from a 1.9% increase in the previous month. The 20-City Composite posted a year-over-year increase of 1.4%, up from a 1.3% increase in the previous month.
…
The pre-seasonally adjusted U.S. National Index saw a drop of 0.1% and the 20-City Composite Index fell 0.03%, while the 10-City Composite Index increased 0.1%.

After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index reported a monthly increase of 0.4%, and both the 10-City Composite and 20-City Composite Indices posted month-over-month gains of 0.5%.

Mortgage Market After Covid! Soaring Home Prices And Mortgage Rates Led To Collapse Of Mortgage Originations

Like The Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime,” we are dealing with the mortgage market affer Covid. What happened? Mortgage originations plunged after mortgage rates (red line) soared.

In addition, insane Federal spending levels caused housing prices to soar.

‘Stay warm!

US Q4 Real GDP Forecast Is 5.4% As Trumps Orders GSEs To Buy $200 BILLION In Mortgage Bonds (Exports Rising At 6.1% And Imports Falling -9.4%)

It looks like President Trump wants ANOTHER Federal Reserve. He has ordered the GSEs (Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac) to purchase $200 BILLION in mortgage bonds in an attempt to lower mortgage rates. Puzzling since real GDP growth is soaring.

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the fourth quarter of 2025 is 5.4 percent on January 8, up from 2.7 percent on January 5. After recent releases from the US Bureau of Economic Analysis, the US Census Bureau, and the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcast of fourth-quarter real personal consumption expenditures growth increased from 2.4 percent to 3.0 percent, while the nowcast of the contribution of net exports to fourth-quarter real GDP growth increased from -0.30 percentage points to 1.97 percentage points.

The 5.4% real GDP forecast is largely due to exports rising at 6.1% and imports falling -9.4%.

Looks like Trump’s tariffs are working.

Oyster Stew? Another Bad Government Idea To Fix Housing Affordability: The 50-year Mortgage (Interest Paid By Borrower Increases By 105%!)

Every time the government tries to make housing more affordable, they make the problem worse. Some people should rent and not fall for the government’s latest folly, the 50-year mortgage.

True, the 50-year mortgage would lower the monthly payment by several hundred dollars (see the following example where the monthly payment falls from $2,349 to $2,083. Or from $2,349 to $2,226 if the most rate increases with the longer mortgage life. BUT total interest paid increases 87% if the 50-year rate remains the same and 105% if the rate rises.

Principal paydown slows to a crawl with a 50-year mortgage, leaving the lender (or mortgage holder) exposed to higher risk if home prices fall.

Government housing policies remind me of the Curly versus the oyster stew skit. where Curly can’t catch the oyster. Yet keeps trying.

The 50-year mortgage reminds me of the ill-fated National Homeownership Strategy under Bill Clinton. By prdering all Federal housing finance entities to work with HUD, the National Homeownership Strategy helped crash the housing market (watch The Big Short!)

Housing After Covid! Declining Mortgage Originations And Rising Home Prices Making Affordability Difficult

Housing after Covid.

2020. A year that goes down in infamy. The Covid outbreak and the government’s insane overreaction to it. Masks and massive spending, driving up housing prices.

After 2020, mortgage originations plummeted while housing prices soared.

US home prices took off like a scalded cat after the Federal government went on a massive spending spree in 2020.

Housing after Covid.

US Purchase Mortgage Demand Increased 3% From Previous Week (Pulte’s 50Y And Layaway Mortgages??)

The US mortgage market is “livin’ on a prayer.” As a result, former homebuilder and current FHFA Director Bill Pulter has suggested 2 mortgage products to make US homes more “affordable”, adding to the legacy of stupid government policies to increase homeownership.

But first, current mortgage demand. Mortgage applications increased 0.6 percent from one week earlier, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey for the week ending November 7, 2025.

The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 0.6 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 1 percent compared with the previous week. The seasonally adjusted Purchase Index increased 6 percent from one week earlier. The unadjusted Purchase Index increased 3 percent compared with the previous week and was 31 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

The Refinance Index decreased 3 percent from the previous week and was 147 percent higher than the same week one year ago.

Now on to Pulte’s stupid mortgage proposals.

Pulte Doubles Down After 50-Year Backlash, Proposes “Layaway Mortgage”

The 50-year mortgage is a stupid idea. True, it can reduce the monthly mortgage payment by several hundred dollars. But it extends the life of the mortgage from 30 to 50 years, keeping the outstanding mortgage balance elevated for longer, exposing the lender (or mortgage owner) to greater losses in the case of default. Not surprising since the duration risk of a 50-year mortgage is greater than on a 30-year mortgage. Who is going to hold these mortgages??

So, Pulte hearing that the mortgage market thinks this is a stupid idea, introduced another stupid mortgage idea: the “layaway mortgage” where buyers make payments for 5-10 years before they’re allowed to move into the home. This is a variation of “rent to own.”

Under Pulte’s Layaway Mortgage program:

▪️ Buyers select a home and begin making monthly payments immediately
▪️ They continue paying for 5-10 years (the “layaway period”)
▪️ During this time, they cannot live in the home, modify it, or even visit without an appointment
▪️ After the layaway period ends, buyers can move in and begin their 40-year mortgage
▪️ If they miss a payment during layaway, they forfeit everything and the home goes back on the market.

So, in other word, a 50-year mortgage (40+10 layaway).

Note: Japan used to offer 100-year mortgages during their housing bubble, but now 35-year mortgages are more common.

Drop In Mortgage Rates Fueling Mortgage Demand (Purchase Demand Nearing 2022 Levels)

The September drop in mortgage rates is sparking the biggest boom in refinancings since the pandemic. Mortgage-refinancing applications have surged above the decade average, despite that period including the record-breaking refi boom of 2020-21 when rates fell to all-time lows. Purchase-loan demand has also rebounded to its best for this time of year since 2022, yet remains well below pre-pandemic levels.