HousingWireHousingWire
Industry professionals were full of optimism heading into the spring that the housing market could pick up after a sluggish start to 2025.
But heading into the summer, that optimism has largely faded. Existing-home sales are hovering around 4 million and many markets that are typically fruitful for homebuilders have stalled.
In its midyear housing market report, John Burns Research & Consulting (JBREC) provided updated grades on market conditions for both the resale and new-home markets. Overall, sentiment among agents and homebuilders is souring.
In the new-home market, JBREC grades cities on a scale of very slow to very strong — and much of the country is headed in the wrong direction.
“We go through this process every single month and we downgraded a number of markets this spring,” Chris Porter, JBREC’s senior vice president of research, said during a webinar on Tuesday. “That includes downgrading from very strong to strong or strong to normal.
“But more markets are being downgraded from normal to slow. That’s pretty unusual for this time of the year. This is the spring selling season. We usually are upgrading some markets.”
Builders in Texas and Florida have gotten accustomed to good conditions, but that’s changed dramatically in the past year. All of the cities in these two states that JBREC disclosed a grade for are now designated as “slow.”
A survey conducted by the company reveals one of the culprits. Among homeowners who are looking to sell, 30% in Texas said it was because of rising property taxes and homeowners insurance expenses, while 26% in northern Florida said the same. The national average was 23%.
Colorado, North Carolina and Nashville — other areas that have been good for builders in recent years — are also graded as “slow.”
Bright spots for builders include Chicago and Indianapolis, which are graded as “strong.” Other than Oakland, all of California is either “strong” or “normal,” with San Diego and Orange County falling into the first category.
JBREC, which typically serves homebuilders and investors, also assessed the resale market by conducting a poll of real estate agents for how they view market conditions. The results don’t look any better.
While Northeast and Midwest markets are graded as “normal,” four markets in Florida and Texas are graded as “very slow” — Fort Lauderdale, Sarasota, Tampa and Austin. The rest are graded as “slow.”
California and the Southwest are also struggling. Across California, Nevada and Arizona, only San Jose, Sacramento and Las Vegas received a “normal” designation. The rest are “slow.”
