By Ronda Kaysen | New York Times
As 2025 began, the stars were aligning for a housing market rebound.
Inflation was easing, the economy looked strong and mortgage rates were drifting downward. By April, there were more available homes to buy than at any time since January 2020, according to the Federal Reserve of St. Louis. The conditions were ripe for buyers to re-emerge, checkbooks in hands, and sellers to negotiate.
Then on April 2, President Trump rolled out his expansive global trade tariffs, shocking the stock and bond markets and sparking fears of a recession. Mortgage rates jumped again, hitting 6.89 percent for a 30-year fixed-rate loan on May 29, their highest level since early February. The extreme volatility threw cold water on a fragile market. Buyers bailed out.
“There isn’t any urgency to buying right now — if anything it feels more risky to put a down payment into a home when you might not have a job six months from now,” said Daryl Fairweather, the chief economist of Redfin.
