San Fransisco is still flooded with vacant office space, and many of its buildings are obsolete or in distress. The vacancy rate is 22.8%, down slightly from the record high it hit last year but still more than triple what it was in 2019.
Sales for New York City’s rent-stabilized multifamily properties with 10 or more units have declined since 2019, when rent laws restricted many owners looking to raise rents on over one million rent-stabilized apartments. Many listings across the city are also staying on the market for weeks longer than what is considered typical, prompting owners to cut prices by 10% on average.
In the 1950s and ’60s, some 20% of Americans would typically move each year. By 2019, the year before the Covid pandemic, 9.8% of Americans moved. During Covid, there was a well-publicized brief surge. In 2023, only 7.8% of Americans moved, the lowest rate logged since U.S. Census records began in 1948. That figure held relatively steady in 2024, the most recent data available.
While homeownership climbs with age, the fastest-growing group of renters is those 55 and older. The share of renters 65 and older rose 30% in the last decade.
Across the U.S. markets 12,458 deals totaling $182.4 billion transacted in the first half of 2025 — a 15.2% increase in dollar volume and a 25.2% rise in transaction count compared to the first half of 2024. Multifamily and industrial deals made up the bulk of transactions completed in the first half of this year, accounting for 35.4% and 28.4% of dollar volume, respectively.
The months of supply for condos, which indicates how long it would take to sell the existing inventory at the present sales rate, is near a 10-year high. Besides a momentary peak at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, it hasn’t been so high since the early 2010s.
So far in 2025, investors who buy homes to flip or rent out have made up about 30% of purchases of both existing and newly built single-family homes, the highest share on record. Small investors made up about 25% of these home purchases while large investors accounted for only about 5%.
The Trump administration is proposing a $27 billion reduction in federal programs that provide rental assistance to low-income individuals. This cut would be part of an overall 44% reduction to HUD’s budget intended to slim down government spending.
A $418 million settlement by the National Association of Realtors last year came in response to a wave of class-action lawsuits in which plaintiffs charged the NAR’s practices unfairly forced home sellers to pay inflated commissions to buyer agents. A recent study found the national average for real estate commissions on the sale of a home was 5.44%, which was up from a 5.32% average in September 2024.
