The share of first-time homebuyers has dropped to 21%, or half from what it was before the pandemic.

Nearly 30 million households, or 54% of primary mortgage-holders, have mortgage rates at or below 4%. They were able to buy homes or refinance their mortgages when rates fell to 3% or lower in 2020 and 2021.

Affluent renters who may spend $20,000 or more a month on a luxury single-family home or apartment are increasingly customizing their new places—replacing lighting, adding home-office space or just painting and adding wallpaper, all in an effort to live in a space, albeit temporarily, that fits their design aesthetic and lifestyle. Many landlords are not only allowing these renovations, they’re actually encouraging them.

St. Paul’s strict 3% rent-control ordinance led to a 79% drop in apartment-building permits and an at least 6% decline in property values. Meanwhile, Minneapolis, without rent control, saw apartment permits rise nearly fourfold in early 2022 from the year before.

Home sellers are seeing a demand for fully furnished luxury real estate. While buyers with deep pockets and busy lives have long sought the simplicity of a turnkey home—one that’s move-in ready, requiring little to no additional work—more buyers today are looking for homes that are move-in ready and fully outfitted, down to the last household item.

Retailers occupied 5.5 million more square feet than they vacated in the third quarter, a turnaround from the first half of the year. The national retail vacancy rate was 4.3% in the third quarter, with retail construction remaining near historically low levels.

Large investors have bought $4.6 billion more U.S. property than they sold so far in 2025—the first time in three years that they have been net purchasers. However, deal activity is weak compared with historic norms.

Over the past two decades, developers in New York have converted nearly 30 million square feet of office space into residential living, with the pace of transformation picking up in recent years.

The Justice Department resolution limits how RealPage can use nonpublic data to propose rents that corporate landlords should charge to optimize occupancy and maximize revenues. Under the proposed settlement, RealPage can still use some nonpublic data to train its artificial-intelligence models if the information is older than 12 months. It also can use the confidential data to estimate what a new building, without any rental-property history, should charge to tenants.

About 57% of homes sold in 2025 through October had at least one price cut, indicating that a significant number of sellers are entering the market with unrealistic expectations. Between 2020 and 2024, that share was closer to 47%. For homes that sold this year with a price cut, the sale price was an average of 3.7% below the asking price.