{"id":424172,"date":"2026-01-23T03:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/424172\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T03:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T03:06:10","slug":"housing-market-shift-breaks-13-year-record-absolutely-insane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/424172\/","title":{"rendered":"Housing Market Shift Breaks 13-Year Record: \u2018Absolutely Insane\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The U.S. housing market <\/a>has broken a 13-year record as the number of sellers now outnumbers potential buyers<\/a> by the largest amount since 2013.<\/p>\n

Current sellers<\/a> outnumber buyers by 529,770, according to new Redfin data.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a situation that Andrew Lokenauth, the finance expert behind the TheFinanceNewsletter.com<\/a>, called \u201cabsolutely insane.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why It Matters<\/p>\n

A wide gap between home sellers and buyers can reflect disarray within the larger housing market.<\/p>\n

With the median sale price of a home listed at roughly $428,000, according to Redfin, many would-be buyers have been priced out of home ownership in America.<\/p>\n

\"\"What To Know<\/p>\n

December numbers showed an estimated 47.1 percent more home sellers than buyers in the housing market, the largest gap since 2013, according to Redfin and Realtor.com. It\u2019s also a surge up 7.1 percent from the month prior.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is absolutely insane: US housing market sellers outnumber buyers by 529,770, the largest gap ever recorded,\u201d Lokenauth wrote on X this week. \u201cWow. I\u2019m sure everything is fine.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a result of the gap, buyers are said to have the upper hand, but affordability still keeps large swaths of Americans out of the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of homeowners are watching their payments double almost overnight. On top of that, insurance premiums and property taxes have surged alongside home values,\u201d Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings Podcast, told Newsweek.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome owners are being forced to sell purely on affordability. Others, especially investors, are trying to exit what they believe is the top of the market. The convergence of ARM resets, rising taxes, higher insurance costs and investor selling is all hitting the market at the same time. That creates a supply shock\u2014more sellers, fewer qualified buyers.\u201d<\/p>\n

The larger gap between buyers and sellers is not one to be characterized as a supply boom but rather a \u201cdemand collapse,\u201d according to Michael Ryan, founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com.<\/p>\n

\u201cSellers outnumber buyers because buyers disappeared, not because we’re drowning in inventory,\u201d Ryan told Newsweek. “This is a mortgage lock-in on one side, affordability paralysis on the other. Existing homeowners locked into 3 percent mortgages aren’t moving. Every 1 percentage point gap between their rate and today’s market rate cuts sales probability by 18 percent….That lock-in prevented 1.3 million sales in just 18 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

What People Are Saying<\/p>\n

Kevin Thompson, the CEO of 9i Capital Group and the host of the 9innings Podcast, told Newsweek: \u201cThe housing market is due for a retrace, and we should see lower prices. The wildcard is what the administration tries to do to artificially prop up housing. If policymakers start allowing 401(k) access, buying down mortgage rates, or creating new tax credits tied to home purchases, they may temporarily distort the market. But those actions don\u2019t fix the underlying affordability problem, they just push demand forward and keep prices elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek: \u201cThe last few years have been some of the most difficult in modern history for American home buyers. Prices were high, mortgage rates soared, and inflationary pressures on so many other costs consumers have to cover made the process of buying a home and maintaining payments impossible for millions of would-be buyers. Sellers are hoping to generate sales at the elevated prices of the years since the pandemic, but with fewer qualifying buyers, the tables have turned, and we’re starting to see prices in some major markets trend lower.\u201d<\/p>\n

Michael Ryan, founder of MichaelRyanMoney.com<\/a>, told Newsweek: \u201cWhat does this mean long term? Gridlock. Mobility dies when people can’t afford to move up and existing owners won’t move sideways into a worse rate. Prices won’t crash because sellers have equity cushions and can simply wait. But transactions stay frozen near 30-year lows.\u201d<\/p>\n

What Happens Next<\/p>\n

While buyers may technically control today\u2019s housing market, the price shifts have not been significant enough to change the market\u2019s issues for buyers and sellers alike on a larger scale.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe problem is the pricing drops are still not significant enough, and for sellers, buying another home involves higher interest rates and costs than the ones they’re currently paying,” Beene said. “The motivation level is just not there.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. housing market has broken a 13-year record as the number of sellers now outnumbers potential buyers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424173,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,151831,5456,1170],"class_list":{"0":"post-424172","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-home-buyer","11":"tag-housing-market","12":"tag-real-estate"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424172","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424172\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}