by Calculated Risk on 5/25/2025 08:12:00 AM
This week, in the CalculatedRisk Real Estate Newsletter on March existing home sales, NAR: Existing-Home Sales Decreased to 4.00 million SAAR in April; Down 2.0% YoY, I noted:
On a month-over-month basis, median prices increased 2.7% from March and are now down 3.0% from the June 2024 peak. This is less than the normal seasonal increase in the median price for April.
Seasonally, median prices typically peak in June (closed sales are mostly for contracts signed in April and May).
And seasonally, prices usually bottom the following January (contracts signed in November and December).
Here is a table of the seasonal percentage increases from January to April, from April to June, and from January to June (the usual seasonal peak), over the last several years.
The last row shows the seasonal decline from June to January of the following year.
In 2020, prices continued to increase in the 2nd half of the year and didn’t peak seasonally until October. And prices only declined slightly in the 2nd half of 2021.
| 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan to Apr | 7.1% | 7.1% | 7.7% | 12.2% | 11.6% | 6.9% | 7.4% | 5.2% |
| Apr to Jun | 6.2% | 6.9% | 2.6% | 7.7% | 4.6% | 6.3% | 5.0% | NA |
| Jan to Jun | 13.7% | 14.4% | 10.6% | 20.8% | 16.8% | 13.7% | 12.8% | NA |
| Jun to Jan | -8.9% | -6.7% | 3.1% | -3.4% | -12.8% | -7.7% | -7.8% | NA |
The 2025 increase in median prices from January to April was less than the normal seasonal increase.
Normally we’d expect median prices to increase about 6% to 7% over the next three months, before declining in the 2nd half of the year. With more and more inventory, and economic uncertainty, the seasonal increase from April to June will probably be less than 6% this year.
