Why the Spring Home Buying Season Is Shaping Up to Be a Disappointment

为何春季购房旺季却让人失望不已

WSJ Your Money Briefing

2025-05-23

10 分钟
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单集简介 ...

The real-estate industry had high expectations going into the spring selling season, but mortgage rates, economic instability, and affordability sidelined prospective buyers – again. Wall Street Journal reporter Nicole Friedman joins host Ariana Aspuru to break down what happened.  Further reading:  Buying a Home in 2025: Navigating the Crunch  Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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  • Here's your money briefing for Friday, May 23rd.

  • I'm Mariana Aspuru for The Wall Street Journal.

  • The housing market still hasn't found its footing.

  • Mortgage rates are hovering around 6.75 percent.

  • Prospective buyers and sellers are worried about the economy.

  • And prices aren't that much lower than record highs.

  • Meaning the spring home buying season has been...

  • The spring is crucial for the real estate industry.

  • And if the market is slow this spring, it can be hard for home sales to recover in the fall.

  • And so it really sets the tone for what we might expect for the whole year.

  • I spoke with Wall Street Journal reporter Nicole Friedman about how the latest numbers can help us understand what happened and what's next.

  • That's after the break.

  • The spring housing market seems to have been a disappointment for buyers and sellers.

  • Wall Street Journal reporter Nicole Friedman joins me to talk about what happened.

  • Nicole, you write about how this housing season is shaping up to be a dud.

  • What key indicators suggest that?

  • So the most important indicator is just the number of home sales.

  • And that has been very low for a couple of years now.

  • So the number of existing home sales in April was 4 million at a seasonally adjusted annualized rate,

  • which means that if sales continued at this pace for a year,