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REAL ESTATE
‘Persistently High’ Mortgage Rates Drag Down Home Sales
Median home sale price at $396,900
Existing-home sales lost momentum in January 2025, sliding nearly 5 percent from December, but were up slightly year-over-year, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reports. The median home sale price was $396,900.
“Persistently higher mortgage rates are not helping,” Lawrence Yun, chief economist at NAR, told reporters this morning.
Mortgage rates have hovered around 7 percent for all of 2025, contributing to sluggish home sales. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rising from a low of 6.2 percent in September to 7.0 percent as of Feb. 19, according to Bankrate’s .
With home prices historically high, remain daunting for homebuyers. Lower mortgage rates would relieve some of that pain — but they also could lure more buyers into the market, furthering fueling prices.
Existing-home sales tick up
The count of existing-home sales includes all completed resales, including single-family houses, condos, townhouses and co-ops. According to NAR, the number of sales nationally decreased from the previous month to an annual pace of 4.08 million transactions…
