Elevated interest rates and economic uncertainty ease March home sales
California Association of Realtors News release
California home sales dialed back slightly in March as consumers grow increasingly concerned about their nancial outlook in the year ahead, the California Association of Realtors recently reported.
Closed escrow sales of existing, singlefamily detached homes in California totaled a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 277,030 in March, according to information collected by CAR from more than 90 local Realtor associations and MLSs statewide. The statewide annualized sales gure represents what would be the total number of homes sold during 2025 if sales maintained the March pace throughout the year. It is adjusted to account for seasonal factors that typically in uence home sales.
March’s sales pace fell 2.3% from the 284,540 homes sold in February and was up 4.9% from a year ago, when a revised 264,200 homes were sold on an annualized basis. Despite a continued bounce back in sales since the beginning of 2025, the level of homes sold remained below the 300,000 mark for the last 30 months. With tari threats and recession fears growing and home buyer optimism fading, home sales could remain so in the months ahead.
Pending home sales across the state declined in March for the fourth straight month, re ecting continued weakening in housing sentiment. Fluctuating mortgage rates and rising recession fears likely contributed to the drop in demand. With rates expected to remain volatile, pending sales may stay so as the spring homebuying season begins.
“Home sales slowed in March as both buyers and sellers grew more concerned about the ongoing tari situation and its potential impact on their personal nances,” said CAR President Heather Ozur, a Palm Springs Realtor. “With uncertainty weighing on those still striving for the American Dream, this is an important time for Realtors to use their expertise to guide clients through the challenges.”
The March statewide median price
climbed 6.7% from $829,060 in February to $884,350 in March and 3.5% from $854,370 in March 2024. The year-overyear increase was the 21st straight month of price gains, but the improvement continued to be mild. On a monthly basis, the March median price jumped from the prior month, but the monthly improvement was slightly below the 10-year historical average increase of 7.7% recorded between February and March. The statewide median price should continue to climb in the next few months if it follows its seasonal pattern, but price growth in the second quarter could remain modest as market uncertainties and economic concerns linger on.
“Despite mortgage rate swings and nancial market volatility, housing conditions remained stable in March,”
Builder con dence levels indicate slow start for spring housing season
National Association of Homebuilders
News release
Growing economic uncertainty stemming from tari concerns and elevated building material costs kept builder sentiment in negative territory in April, despite a modest bump in con dence likely due to a slight retreat in mortgage interest rates in recent weeks.
Builder con dence in the market for newly built single-family homes was 40 in April, edging up one point from March, according to the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index recently released.
“The recent dip in mortgage rates may have pushed some buyers o the fence in March, helping builders with sales activity,” said NAHB Chairman Buddy Hughes, a home builder and developer from Lexington, N.C. “At the same time, builders have expressed growing uncertainty over market conditions as tari s have increased price volatility for building materials at a time when the industry continues to grapple with labor shortages and a lack of buildable lots.”
“Policy uncertainty is having a negative impact on home builders, making it di cult for them to accurately price homes and make critical business decisions,” said NAHB Chief Economist Robert Dietz. “The April HMI
data indicates that the tari cost e ect is already taking hold, with the majority of builders reporting cost increases on building materials due to tari s.”
When asked about the impact of tari s on their business, 60% of builders reported their suppliers have already increased or announced increases of material prices due to tari s. On average, suppliers have increased their prices by 6.3% in response to announced, enacted, or expected tari s. This means
builders estimate a typical cost e ect from recent tari actions at $10,900 per home.
The latest HMI survey also revealed that 29% of builders cut home prices in April, unchanged from March. Meanwhile, the average price reduction was 5% in April, the same rate as the previous month. The use of sales incentives was 61% in April, up from 59% in March.
Derived from a monthly survey that NAHB has been conducting for more than 35 years, the NAHB/ Wells Fargo HMI gauges builder perceptions of current single-family home sales and sales expectations for the next six months as “good,” “fair” or “poor.” The survey also asks builders to rate tra c of prospective buyers as “high to very high,” “average” or “low to very low.” Scores for each component are then used to calculate a seasonally adjusted index
where any number over 50 indicates that more builders view conditions as good than poor.
The HMI index gauging current sales conditions rose two points in April to a level of 45. The gauge charting tra c of prospective buyers increased one point to 25 while the component measuring sales expectations in the next six months fell four points to 43.
Looking at the threemonth moving averages for regional HMI scores, the Northeast fell seven points in April to 47, the Midwest moved one point lower to 41, the South dropped three points to 39 and the West posted a two-point decline to 35.
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Home
said CAR Senior Vice President and Chief Economist Jordan Levine. “Although slower open-escrow sales point to a sluggish start for the spring season, increased inventory and modest price growth o er hope for buyers seeking more options and improved a ordability.”
Other key points from CAR’s March 2025 resale housing report include:
• Sales in three of the ve major California regions declined from a year ago on an unseasonally adjusted basis, while sales in the other two increased mildly. The Central Coast region recorded the biggest sales drop from last year with a decrease of 6.7% in sales, followed by the Far North (-1.2%) and Southern California (-0.4%). Sales of existing single-family homes continued to climb year over year in the San Francisco Bay Area with a strong 6.5% increase as three out of nine counties in the region posted a double-digit sales surge from a year ago. Sales in the Central Valley region (2.5%) also inched up from last year, but the increase was not as robust.
• Thirty-one of the 53 counties tracked by CAR registered sales increases from a year ago, with more than half (17) of them surging by more than 10% on a yearover-year basis. Siskiyou (44.4%) posted the sharpest sales increase from a year ago, followed by Tehama (40%) and Tuolumne (40%). Home sales declined from last year in 20 counties, with sales in 10 of them falling by more than 10%. Del Norte (-61.1%) registered the biggest sales drop in March, followed by Trinity (-60%) and Mariposa (-48%). All three counties have had a rough rst quarter so far this year, with sales in each of them dropping by more than 25% on a year-to-date basis for the rst three months of 2025.
At the regional level, all ve major California regions registered a median price increase from last year, but the increases were mild except for one region. The Central Coast region, again, had the largest price growth from a year ago at a jump of 16.6%, as prices in both Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties within the region surged by doubledigits. The Central Valley (3.4%) came in second, followed by the Far North (3.4%), Southern California (3.3%) and the San Francisco Bay Area (1%).
Home prices increased on a yearover-year basis in three-fourths of the California counties, with March’s median
sales prices rising from their year-ago levels in 39 of the 53 counties tracked by CAR. Mendocino (48.2%) posted the biggest price jump of all counties last month, while prices in both Santa Barbara (38.8%) and Tehama (24%) surged from their year-ago levels by more than 20%. Thirteen counties registered a drop in their median price from a year ago, with Del Norte falling the most at 51.5%, followed by Plumas (-27.5%) and Mariposa (-18.3%).
Following the typical seasonal pattern, March’s unsold inventory index declined from the prior month as sales pace picked up at the end of the rst quarter. The statewide UII, which measures the number of months needed to sell the supply of homes on the market at the current sales rate, dipped month over month but grew solidly from its year-ago level as more new listings hit the market. The index was 3.5 months in March, down from 4.0 months in February and up from 2.6 months in March 2024. Total active listings in March rose on a year-over-year basis at the fastest pace since January 2023. The level of active listings last month reached a six-month high and recorded the 14th consecutive month of annual gains in housing supply. New active listings at the state level rose year-over-year by double-digits for the third consecutive month, as more sellers began to list properties on the market.Newly added units also surged more than 20% from the previous month a er dipping slightly in February.As of now, the unusual month-to-month dip in February looks more like a temporary hiccup due to the recent nancial market volatility, rather than a re ection of the concern of the economy’s well-being.
The median number of days it took to sell a California single-family home was 22 days in March, up from 18 days in March 2024.
CAR’s statewide sales-price-to-listprice ratio was 100% in March 2025 and 100% in March 2024.
The statewide median price per square foot for an existing single-family home was $430, up from $424 in March a year ago.
The 30-year, xed-mortgage interest rate averaged 6.65% in March, down from 6.82% in March 2024, according to CAR’s calculations based on Freddie Mac’s weekly mortgage survey data.
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