Housing Market Mood

In 2024, home buyers and sellers navigated challenges that shaped their views on the American dream of homeownership. For many, the trifecta of high home prices, elevated interest rates, and low inventory has created a state of constant stress, often leaving both would-be buyers and sellers feeling defeated. We surveyed 2,000 recent home buyers and sellers in the U.S. and found the majority (63%) agree: the highly sought-after American dream is dwindling.

However, we may be turning a corner in 2025: optimism is the strongest emotion Americans feel regarding the near future housing market (29%). Thanks to the recent interest rate cuts by the Fed, nearly 70% of consumers are more likely to buy a new home or sell their home in the next six months – an encouraging development that could help jumpstart the market. 

While mortgage rates are the 800-pound gorilla in terms of driving supply and demand in the housing market, other considerations are weighing heavily on consumer minds: home prices and seasonality. Here’s what we found.

Sticker Shock: Will Home Prices Continue to Climb? 

Perhaps unsurprisingly, home prices and affordability continue to reign as the most stressful aspects of home transactions for buyers and sellers. And when it comes to the factors influencing home prices over the next six months, buyers and sellers agree that interest rates, supply and demand, and economic growth top the list. 

Additionally, nearly 60% of home buyers and sellers anticipate prices in their area will continue to climb over the next six months. This tracks with other signals in the market: no signs of distressed selling, stabilized unemployment rates, strong borrower credit scores, and near record-level highs for home equity levels. However, I don’t think price appreciation will be as drastic as people may think.

Home prices skyrocketed in 2021 and 2022 – so much so that we saw three years' worth of home price appreciation in 18 months. The increase in home prices was the highest in 35 years, but as affordability continues to crunch we may have hit an inflection point. While I don’t think home prices will necessarily go down (because sellers would rather stay put), I believe the rate at which they’ve been increasing will temper.

Real Estate Seasonality: Is it dead? 

While the fall and winter have traditionally been seen as a slower real estate season, consumers’ outlooks may be changing. Overall, 26% of both buyers and sellers don’t feel the season has any influence over when they buy or sell their home – proving our hypothesis that we’ve entered the era of the ‘Anytime Buyer’ and that macro factors like affordability are weighing more into decisions than seasonality. The data also revealed that buyers are evenly split on when they would prefer to purchase a home: 37% said they would prefer to buy a home in the spring or summer and another 37% said the fall or winter. 

Additionally, nearly 60% of homeowners say now is a good time to sell, with 50% of buyers believing it’s also a good time to buy a home. And older generations may be the ones responsible for breaking the mold: nearly 40% of Baby Boomers say the season wouldn’t impact when they sell their home. This is double that of their Millennial (20%) and Gen Z (21%) counterparts. 

While the volatility of the housing market can be daunting, it doesn’t have to be. Homeowners can skip the stress and sell directly to Opendoor any season, for any reason. Get started today. 

Amit Arora is the Chief Investment Officer at Opendoor.

Methodology

The Opendoor Survey was conducted by Wakefield Research (www.wakefieldresearch.com) among 2,000 US Recent Home Buyers & Sellers, "recent" defined as having bought or sold a home in the past twelve months with 50/50 a quota for buyers/sellers, between September 26th and October 10th, 2024, using an email invitation and an online survey.