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After a year that saw the lowest level of existing-home sales since 1995 in a country with a population that has grown by 75 million since then, real estate brokerages are rightly concerned about what the housing market has in store for their already compressed margins in 2025.
Economists Jessica Lautz and Lisa Sturtevant took to the stage at HousingWire’s Housing Economic Summit on Tuesday to examine data and trends as they forecast what this year could have in store for anxious broker-owners.
In their views, some of the main socioeconomic factors impacting the current housing market include return-to-office mandates, child care costs, the rising age of first-time homebuyers and generational demographics.
Lautz, the deputy chief economist at the National Association of REALTORS® (NAR), has seen similar trends in her own research.
“We did a nationwide survey and we actually asked folks, ‘What are you looking for in a house?’” Lautz said. “And home office was the least most sought-after feature. When we asked, ‘What are you looking for in a neighborhood?’, proximity to job and commuting was the most important factor people are looking for.”
But the desire to be close to work is still not what it once was for homeowners and potential buyers. Lautz said that a decade ago, roughly half of consumers ranked distance to work as very important, compared to just one-third of them in 2024.
“It has dropped off, but I think this rebound we are seeing is going to have some interesting effects,” Lautz said.