Homebuyers and sellers loathe this housing market - Scotsman Guide | Goose Pod

Authors: Ryan Kingsley

Publisher:

Scotsman Guide

Published: 12/18/2025

Language:English

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Tel

Good evening Norris. It is Monday, December 22nd, at nearly midnight. I am Tel, and this is Goose Pod, your own personal corner of the airwaves. Tonight, we are tackling a bit of a thorny subject that has everyone talking at the dinner table.

Ginny

And I am Ginny. We are here to explore why homebuyers and sellers alike seem to loathe this current housing market. It is a landscape of frozen ambitions and weary stalemates, where the very idea of home has become a source of profound intellectual and emotional tension.

Tel

It really is a bit of a pickle, isn’t it? The latest data practically screams that nobody is happy out there. Fannie Mae’s sentiment index has gone quiet, almost as if the respondents were just too grumpy to answer the phone anymore. Sales are limping along.

Ginny

It feels like a silent, frozen garden. Redfin tells us that homes are lingering, taking a full week longer to find a match than they did last year. Zillow watches as pending sales slump by eighteen percent. It is a profound stillness, a winter of the soul.

Tel

And you certainly cannot blame them! Only twenty-seven percent of people thought it was a good time to buy recently. Most folks think the economy is heading the wrong way entirely. It is like we are all trying to walk through deep snow with no boots.

Ginny

Even the sellers are clutching their keys, hoping for a spring thaw that might never arrive. They are paralyzed by the fear of job losses, a sentiment echoed by Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller. It is a melancholy dance between the anxiety of today and tomorrow.

Tel

To understand this gloom, we have to look back a bit. Remember 2021? That was the first time average prices skipped over the four-hundred-thousand-dollar mark. Then 2022 hit a peak of over five-hundred-thousand. We were all flying quite high on those low mortgage rates, weren't we?

Ginny

We were intoxicated by the ease of it all. But by 2023, the Affordability Index hit a record low. A median-income family could no longer afford the very home they lived in. It is a room of one's own that has unfortunately become a gilded cage.

Tel

Exactly! Rates jumped from three percent to over seven percent in what felt like a blink. The number of sales dropped by two million in just two years. It is like the music suddenly stopped and everyone realized there were not nearly enough chairs to go around.

Ginny

The demographic shift is quite striking as well. The forty-five to sixty-four age group is the most pessimistic. Perhaps they remember the stability of the past and find this current volatility particularly jarring. It is a loss of a certain architectural dream for the middle class.

Tel

Aye, and while prices dipped slightly in 2024, it is cold comfort when your wages are not keeping up. People are just exhausted. They have seen the market go from a sprint to a crawl, and they are wondering if it will ever actually walk again.

Ginny

There is a real tug-of-war happening now. Sellers are sitting on a mountain of equity, so they are in no rush to move. They think, why sell and take on a six percent mortgage when I am currently sitting on a three percent one? It is agonizing.

Tel

It is a stalemate of the highest order. Inventory is stalling because homeowners are hesitant to step into the fray. Meanwhile, buyers are waiting for that magical six-point-five percent rate threshold. They believe it will unlock the gates, but the competition remains incredibly fierce for everyone.

Ginny

You have all-cash buyers making up nearly thirty percent of sales! Imagine being a first-time buyer, forty years old on average now, trying to compete with a suitcase full of money. It is like bringing a quill to a modern battlefield. The imbalance is truly heartbreaking.

Tel

And even as wage growth begins to outpace price gains, the supply remains so tight that any surge in demand just pushes prices higher again. It is a recursive loop of frustration, Norris, where every single step forward feels like two steps back into the cold.

Ginny

But it is not all shadows and dust. Mortgage rates have actually stabilized a bit recently, hovering around six-point-seven percent. It is a far cry from the wild swings we saw in 2022. That cooling of volatility lets people actually plan a budget with some confidence.

Tel

Stability is its own kind of mercy, isn't it? The Federal Reserve’s rate cut in September was a soft whisper of hope, nudging rates lower. In real terms, if wages continue to rise faster than home prices, 2026 might actually offer a sliver of genuine affordability.

Ginny

It is a strange sort of progress. Houses becoming cheaper because everything else is getting more expensive. But if it helps a person get a foot in the door, we must welcome it. The market is slowly adjusting to this new, leaner reality we all face.

Tel

We are looking at a long, slow recovery. By 2026, we might see mortgage rates average six-point-three percent. It will not be a sudden collapse of prices, but a gentle cooling. Maybe some new policies will help, like more manufactured housing or those better zoning initiatives.

Ginny

It is about building a future where a home isn't just a dream, but a reality again. We must move toward a more neutral monetary policy and hope that inflation remains at bay. Only then can the younger generations finally find their own space in the world.

Tel

That is the end of today's discussion. We have covered a lot of ground tonight, Norris, but I hope it helps you make sense of the madness. Thank you for listening to Goose Pod. See you tomorrow, and keep your chin up, won't you?

This podcast explores why both homebuyers and sellers loathe the current housing market. High mortgage rates, low affordability, and stagnant inventory create a stalemate. Sellers are hesitant to move due to expensive new mortgages, while buyers struggle with competition and high prices. A long, slow recovery is anticipated, with potential improvements by 2026.

Homebuyers and sellers loathe this housing market - Scotsman Guide

Read original at Scotsman Guide →

Though the publication of Fannie Mae’s Home Purchase Sentiment Index (HPSI) has been curtailed, it hasn’t stopped housing market indicators from speaking for silenced survey respondents.And those indicators scream: Homebuyers and home sellers loathe this housing market.Home sales in 2025 are on track to match or slightly exceed last year’s three-decade lows, which roughly tracked similar sales totals in 2023.

A seasonal slowdown in home sales activity is typical when winter rolls around, as U.S. consumers swap spray tans for snow shovels and hunker down for the holidays. But “typical” has taken on new meaning in recent years, and not least when it comes to the housing market.Even accounting for seasonal factors, the typical U.

S. home that sold in the four weeks ending Dec. 14 took a week longer to go under contract than the same time last year, new Redfin data shows.Zillow reports that pending home sales slumped more than 18% in November from the previous month, hovering 3% higher than a year ago. New listings plummeted nearly 30% month over month — the largest monthly November decline going back to 2018.

Faltering consumer sentimentFannie Mae did not release its monthly National Housing Survey, which includes the HPSI, for the first time in 15 years in November, part of an ongoing clampdown on public access to its housing market surveys and forecasts.Although the government-sponsored mortgage giant has not issued a formal statement regarding the suspension of that report, the Federal Reserve Bank of St.

Louis lists the HPSI as being discontinued.But Fannie’s National Housing Survey for October — based on responses in September and the last one published by the company — painted a dim picture of homebuying sentiment. Only 27% of respondents thought it was a good time to buy a home, and almost 70% felt the economy was heading in the wrong direction.

Home sellers don’t feel too enthusiastic about current conditions, either, according to a recent housing analysis by Zillow.“Sellers may be holding out hope that they get the price they want in the spring instead of cutting prices to attract a buyer,” Zillow wrote.Get these articles in your inboxSign up for our daily newsletterGet these articles in your inboxSign up for our daily newsletterConsumer sentiment has soured dramatically since April, largely in response to economic developments like President Donald Trump’s signature tariff policies, stubbornly high inflation and weakening job creation.

A six-week government shutdown lasting from Oct. 1 to Nov. 12 added angina to anxiety.“I’ve talked to home builders,” said Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller earlier this week, speaking to business executives at an event at Yale University. “The reason people aren’t buying homes is because they’re worried about losing their jobs.

”The University of Michigan reported in early December that consumers’ attitudes toward the economy were 28% lower than a year ago, on the cusp of Trump’s second term, driven lower by job concerns and high prices.‘Buyers’ biggest concern’“Mortgage rates are buyers’ biggest concern,” said Tracy Edwards, a Redfin real estate agent, commenting on current housing conditions in a recent market analysis.

“They want to make sure they’re not paying too much every month.”And yet, mortgage rates for 30-year fixed-rate home loans averaged 6.22% for the week ending Dec. 11, according to Fannie’s government-sponsored sibling Freddie Mac — anywhere from 0.5% to 0.75% lower than this time last year, according to Redfin’s estimates.

That, combined with cooling home price gains and household earnings growth, has helped the median amount of new mortgage payments decline for six straight months, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association.A nearly 6% decline in pending home sales over the past month, according to Redfin data, suggests that hard-won affordability gains have done little to move the needle for homebuyers.

Zillow economists estimate that monthly mortgage payments for a typical house consumed 35.7% of median household income in January, assuming a 20% downpayment, which declined to 32.6% by November.“Affordability is still a hurdle for homebuyers, but 2025 brought real progress,” said Kara Ng, senior economist at Zillow.

That progress has entailed notable inventory expansion in markets around the U.S., flattening home prices and lower borrowing costs.With many housing economists anticipating mortgage rates around 6% or higher in 2026, relative affordability in 2025 was the best it has been since 2022.With the National Association of Realtors scheduled to report existing-home sales figures for November on Friday, buyers and sellers will likely continue to confront tough trade-offs in murky market conditions in 2026.

Homebuyers and sellers loathe this housing market - Scotsman Guide

Homebuyers and sellers loathe this housing market - Scotsman Guide

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