2025 vs 2024

The housing market did better last year. That’s a good way to put it. We had slightly more sales, affordability improved just a little bit, mortgage rates were lower, and prices softened. Today, let’s dive deeply into regional trends, and I hope you find some value here, whether you’re local or not.

Skim by topic or digest slowly.

UPCOMING SPEAKING GIGS:

1/20/26 Carlile Group (private event)
1/21/26 Toll Brothers event (TBA)
1/22/26 DJ Lenth event (private)
2/11/26 Lodi Association of Realtors event
2/12/26 Answer Home Loans Event at PCAR
2/20/26 PCAR
2/26/26 NAPRM Luncheon
3/12/26 Made 4 More
3/19/26 Yolo YPN event
3/25/26 Coldwell Banker EDH
4/9/26 Realtist Association of Sacramento
4/14/26 Culbertson & Gray
10/2/26 PCAR

Real estate professionals getting hyped last week:

AFFORDABILITY IMPROVED JUST A LITTLE BIT

It’s not much, but affordability has improved in the local housing market, and in many areas around the country. This is what I told the Sacramento Bee a few weeks ago.

Here are some visuals I made with an affordability index from the California Association of Realtors. Look, we are still REALLY low, but it’s good to see a positive direction. Baby steps. What 28% means is 28% of households can afford a median-priced home.

The trend is showing up in most local counties also.

TWENTY-ONE BILLION IN PRICE VOLUME

There was a whopping 21.4 billion in real estate traded last year (“billion” is said with a Dr. Evil accent). It’s interesting to see where sales are happening, right? And Sacramento County is by far the largest county.

THERE WERE MORE CLOSED SALES IN 2025

Okay, we had less than 1% more closed sales volume. Technically, only 0.6% more. On one hand, it feels like I’m giving a participation trophy here, but more is better than less, so this feels like a win. I project more volume in 2026 too (see my projections here).

The extra volume was due to El Dorado and Placer, so shout out to my peeps in both areas. The region thanks you for your service.

WE SAW 2,000 MORE SELLERS LIST THEIR HOMES

The good news is we had 8% more new listings in 2025 compared to 2024, which is about two thousand extra sellers coming to the market. However, the bigger story is this growth happened during the first part of the year. Sellers really pulled back from coming to the market during the second half of 2025, which was a big departure from the trend. This happened both locally and nationally, and it’s a trend we really want to see change in 2026.

IT TOOK ALMOST TWO WEEKS LONGER TO SELL

The spring season ended two months early (see blue line), and this sharp inflection point led to properties sitting on the market. Days on market was pretty normal until after April. In short, by the end of the year, it was taking almost two weeks longer than last year to sell. Some properties still went very quickly, but quite a few lingered since the price wasn’t right.

MORE SELLERS PULLED LISTINGS FROM THE MARKET

There was a 22% increase in the number of cancellations this year, so lots of listings didn’t make it to the finish line. On one hand, it’s natural to see more cancellations since we had more listings, but we also saw cancellations grow more than expected.

IT FELT SOFTER, BUT NOT LIKE A CRASH

What was 2025 like? Well, not really like any previous year. It wasn’t flexing like 2021, not crashing like 2007, and it was softer than a normal year like 2019. Do you see what I mean below? Sometimes people get bent out of shape when I say the market didn’t feel like a crash, but that’s what the stats show. No sugarcoating. The stats need to form our narrative rather than imposing a narrative on the stats.

THE NEW HOMES MARKET HAD A TOUGH YEAR

Builder volume was down about 18% from the previous year, which means there were over 1,200 fewer new homes built. It’s a huge bummer to less inventory hit the market, but the positive here is builders adjusted prices and offered fat concessions in so many cases, which is a win for consumers. By the way, Roseville was the top dog this year for the number of units built (Rancho Cordova was top in 2024).

PRICES ARE FLAT WHEN WE LOOK AT ANNUAL STATS

Based on annual stats, I can see how some might describe the housing market as flat or barely up. I mean, it’s statistically true, but be super careful about using graphs like this if your goal is to hide what’s been happening lately.

BUT PRICES REALLY DIPPED 2-3%

When we zoom in on recent months instead of comparing entire years, price declines are obvious. And here’s a good way to explain it. Imagine you lost 30 pounds last year during the first six months, but then gained 25 pounds back during the second half of the year. Technically, you could say you’re still down 5 pounds because that’s true, but the real trend lately is one of gaining weight. So, if the focus is on the big picture only, we’d completely miss what’s been happening lately. And this is exactly what’s going on with housing stats. Annual stats give a solid overall picture of the market, but they aren’t really showing softening lately, which is why we need to look at monthly stats also. By the way, Zillow’s price index also shows Sacramento is down about the same amount (so does Homes dot com).

PRICES IN TWELVE COUNTIES: ANNUAL vs DECEMBER

The annual median sales price in twelve counties is mostly up, but we see a different story with year-over-year December stats.

Do you see the different vibe with December stats being mostly down? And by the way, I wouldn’t make much of one month of positive data in a smaller county since smaller areas bounce around so much from month to month. And homes in El Dorado County last December were 16% larger in size than this year, which explains the -7% figure.

YES, SOFTENING PRICES ARE A GOOD THING

I realize some might think of prices softening as a bad thing, but I don’t view it that way. I don’t mean to be insensitive to anyone in a situation with negative equity. I’m simply saying there is nothing sacred about home prices being out of reach for consumers, so it’s healthy when we start to see more buyers and sellers able to participate. In short, the price trend in 2025 was a step in the right direction for the sake of health, but that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been pain involved for some either.

THE 2022 GAP IS BIGGER NOW

Prices peaked in mid-2022 when mortgage rates more than doubled, and for the past few years we’ve been down maybe 5% or so, but this year we lost a few more percent, so the change is starting to sound bigger at 8%. I’m only sharing traditional metrics here, but Zillow’s Price Index shows Sacramento is down 7%, which is very similar. Don’t be rigid about this figure though. Look to the comps in your neighborhood because 7-8% doesn’t rigidly apply to every location.

SOME AREAS DID BETTER THAN OTHERS

Where did the sales happen? Well, here’s a look at a few local counties. I hoped to do tables like this for all twelve counties, but I’ll unpack more ahead as I have upcoming presentations in various places. If you want to see other locations too, hit me up so I can at least consider it. Put a bug in my ear. Or hire me in your county for a presentation, and we’ll go deep.

ANNUAL RECAP VISUALS FOR TWELVE COUNTIES

Here are some recap visuals. Keep in mind these are annual stats, which means the comparison is all sales from 2024 vs all sales from 2025. Don’t forget to look at monthly stats that compare December 2024 with December 2025 too.

BEATING THE DEAD HORSE WITH CLOSING VISUALS

Okay, it’s time to offload some final visuals that I thought might be interesting. No commentary, but let me know if you have any questions. I’m always happy to talk shop, and it’s a joy to share ideas.