One month into 2025…

As we wrap up January, we’re taking stock of the overall housing market. If things have been a little slow in your home sale business, well, you certainly are not alone. As we report in our first story, homes are now selling at the slowest pace since March 2020 (…and well, we all remember what happened right after that). 

But there is a lot of opportunity out there for buyers who have the cash. In our second story, we show you why January was very busy in terms of listings, as a lot of homes hit the market. It’s still less than pre-pandemic levels, but there is a noticeable spike happening.

Needless to say, there’s some good and not-so-good news out there. We’re keeping a watchful and hopeful eye on all the latest trends, and we’ll keep you updated as best we can.

– James and David

Homes selling at slowest pace in five years

Homes are changing hands at the slowest rate since the start of the pandemic, as high mortgage rates and home prices continue to dampen sales. The typical home under contract spent 54 days on the market, the longest since March 2020. By comparison, during the 2022 homebuying boom, homes sold in just 35 days. This is according to Redfin's latest data for the four weeks ending January 26th. Here are the other key takeaways:

• Home prices are up 4.8% year-over-year.

• The median monthly housing payment is $2,753, just shy of April’s record high.

• Housing supply reached 5.2 months, the highest since February 2019 and up from 4.9 months a year earlier.

• Pending home sales dropped 9.4% year-over-year, the steepest decline since September 2023.

Our take

Elevated housing costs are the primary reason for slower sales, but for buyers who can afford to buy, they do have a wide selection. The housing market now has over five months of supply, its highest level since early 2019. "Months of supply" refers to the time it would take to sell all available homes at the current sales pace. A higher number indicates homes are lingering on the market longer, signaling a shift toward a buyer’s market.

Active listings mark 15th straight month of growth

The number of active for-sale listings grew by 24.6% compared to last year, marking the 15th consecutive month of growth. Likewise, the number of newly listed homes grew by 10.8% year over year, making it the busiest January in terms of new listing activity since 2021, according to Realtor.com. Here’s what else the listing service reports from January:

• Newly listed homes increased 37.5% month-over-month, the largest December-to-January increase in five years.

• The total number of unsold homes, including homes that are under contract, increased 17.1% compared with last year.

• The median price of homes for sale was $400,500, down 2.2% compared with last year

• 15.6% of sellers cut their listing price, up 0.9% from last year at this time

• Even with this spike in listings, inventory was still 24.8% down compared with typical 2017 to 2019 pre-pandemic levels.

• Western (+31%) and Southern (+27.2) states have the biggest YOY listing gains, while Midwest (+16.8%) and Northeastern (+7.8%) are relatively smaller

Our take

Despite 30-year fixed mortgage rates remaining high—just above 7%—homeowners appear to have adjusted to this new normal and have been moving forward with listings. This suggests that while the “mortgage lock-in effect” is real, its impact is fading. But while sellers are eager to make moves, buyers remain cautious, contributing to the slowest home sales pace in five years. On a brighter note, pending home sales – homes under contract but not yet sold – continued to recover in January, rising 1.8% year over year.

Markets where institutional landlords own the most

In Q3 2024, large institutional landlords (those owning 1,000 or more homes) accounted for just 0.3% of U.S. home sales, the lowest share in six years, according to John Burns Research and Consulting via ResiClub. This marks a sharp decline from the peak of 2.4% in Q2 2022.

Although institutional landlords collectively own only about 1% of the nation’s single-family housing stock, their footprint is much larger in certain markets. 

Here are the five markets where their ownership share is highest:

1. Atlanta – 4.33%

2. Jacksonville – 3.77%

3. Charlotte – 3.23%

4. Memphis – 3.11%

5. Tampa – 2.85%

Our take

This is the myth that seemingly won’t go away. As this data shows, it's time to move past blaming institutional landlords for the housing crisis. They aren’t buying up all the homes and squeezing out individual buyers. In reality, their purchase activity remains low, largely due to high home prices, slow rent growth, and rising maintenance and carrying costs, which have made fewer properties financially viable for investors. Unless home prices fall, rent growth accelerates, or interest rates decrease, this trend is unlikely to change.

The news that just missed the cut

• Homes.com’s estimate of the financial losses from the LA wildfires

• New telemarketing rules on hold after appeals court ruling

• Buying frenzy in D.C.’s luxury-home market

• What it takes to achieve billion-dollar success in real estate

• This is the largest office-to-residential conversion in the US — and it just launched leasing

Foundation Plans

Advice from James and David to win the day

While the housing market might be moving slower than normal, time certainly hasn’t. We’re astonished that today is already the last day of January. If you feel like time is always getting away from you–which we definitely sometimes do–it’s so important to build good time-management routines. As we head into February, we’d like to give you some tips to help you master your time and boost productivity.

Preparation is key – You don’t want to wake up and say, “What am I doing today?” You want to eliminate any anxiety and uncertainty about the week. Make sure you know what you’re going to do each day, and have a plan of attack ready BEFORE the day, or even the week, begins. We recommend spending an hour every Sunday night reviewing your past week and previewing the next one. Ask yourself questions about the previous week. Who did I talk to? How was my sales activity? Who did I meet? Who needs to be in my CRM? Then ask questions about this week. Who are my hottest targets? Who am I trying to meet? What family/personal stuff is on my agenda? Basically, use the past to plan ahead for the future.

Block your time and batch your activities – Once you’ve decided what you’re going to do each day, we recommend blocking your time and batching your activities. For example, give yourself a two-or-three hour block on Wednesday to farm an area or make all your follow-up calls. But also batch your activities. Instead of writing an offer letter one minute and then making a follow-up phone call the next, group your similar activities together so that you get into a rhythm and flow. Trust us. You’ll be more effective that way. 

Hold yourself accountable – Our loyal readers know that every Monday, every member of our team, including us, meets to discuss what we did in the past week. How many sales did we close? How many new contacts did we make? How many pending sales are in the pipeline? How closer are we to hitting our revenue goals? If you don’t have a team, get yourself a mentor or a person you trust and meet with them in person or via video. Make it a non-negotiable. The meeting doesn’t have to be long. Just enough to make sure you are staying on track.

To get started and learn how productive agents do it, start here and here

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Just in Case

Keep the latest industry data in your back pocket with today’s mortgage rates:

“Without commitment, you’ll never start. But more importantly, without consistency, you’ll never finish.”—Denzel Washington

Take some time to regroup and focus this weekend, friends. As we said above, time is relentless. We start February next week! We’ll see you back here on Tuesday!

– James and David