The frozen housing market shows few signs of thawing as 2025 begins

New year, same old real estate market: The high mortgage rates, scarce inventory and dismal affordability that have plagued housing look set to linger into 2025.

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There were some signs of improvement late last year. Pending home sales rose for four months in a row through November, boosting hopes that the two-year deep freeze in residential real estate was starting to thaw. Industry experts have said buyers are increasingly adjusting their expectations, deciding they can’t wait for lower mortgage rates to spring for a home.

In some markets, consumers “are taking advantage of more available inventory,” National Association of Realtors Chief Economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. “Mortgage rates have averaged above 6% for the past 24 months. Buyers are no longer waiting for or expecting mortgage rates to fall substantially.” Particularly in the South, where relatively more homes are available and jobs are plentiful, pending home sales jumped 5.2% in November.

Mortgage rates dipped late last summer ahead of the Federal Reserve’s September interest rate cut, its first in four years. But they’ve remained at decadeslong highs and began marching toward the 7% mark around the end of the year. So it was hardly a surprise that mortgage applications plunged nearly 22% at the end of December. Granted, that’s typically the slowest month for homebuying activity, but with the central bank now signaling caution around the pace of further rate cuts this year, hopes have been shelved that mortgage rates will fall sharply anytime soon.

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“We are no longer having a view that mortgage rates are going to go to the fives next year or even the following,” Robert Reffkin, the CEO of real estate company Compass, told CNBC last month. “We believe they will stay around the 6% range for the next two years.”

Broader economic uncertainties are also weighing on the housing market, particularly the inflationary risks of President-elect Donald Trump’s economic agenda. Economists widely agree that tariffs, more tax cuts and restricted immigration threaten to raise consumer prices.

Homebuilders told NBC News last fall, ahead of the election, that Trump’s planned mass deportations of undocumented people would hollow out their immigrant-heavy workforces, slowing construction and driving up prices. But some said they doubted the incoming administration would be able to carry out such a sweeping crackdown.

In the meantime, the bond market is already factoring in some of these policy uncertainties, and because mortgage rates are set by the yield on 10-year Treasury notes, homebuyers holding out for relief may be disappointed. A survey of mortgage lenders last year found that 56% of prospective buyers wanted a mortgage rate between 5.5% and 5.75%, a range that looks well out of reach in the near term.

Elevated mortgage rates are a big factor in the worst home affordability in decades. The Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta finds affordability for an average-income family is at its worst level since 2006. Many of those who have been getting into the market are stretching their budgets to do so. An NBC News analysis of federal data found in October that about 1 in 4 middle-income new homeowners — twice as many as a decade before — are buying into properties whose expenses leave them financially cost-burdened.

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“This persistent increase in prices and interest rates has created a challenging environment for both first-time buyers and those looking to move up the property ladder,” the data firm CoreLogic noted last month. Many existing homeowners who previously secured ultra-low mortgage rates are likely feeling locked in now, which “intensifies the inventory shortage by further limiting the supply of homes on the market,” it wrote.

Still, newly built homes are coming onto the market in some in-demand parts of the country, CoreLogic said, including Florida and Texas — “offering a glimmer of hope for a better-balanced market in 2025.”