The housing market got a small boost from lower mortgage rates last month, with sales of previously owned homes rising for the third-straight month after a weak spring and summer.
Closings on existing homes rose 0.5% in November from the prior month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.13 million, the highest level in nine months, the National Association of Realtors® reported Friday.
Still, the November figure was down 1% from last year, when a surge of home sales in the fourth quarter was not enough to prevent 2024 from registering the lowest number of home sales in nearly 30 years.
Despite the uptick in fall sales this year, 2025 is on track for an even lower number of home sales than the three-decade low reached last year, unless December brings an unexpected surge.
“Existing-home sales increased for the third straight month due to lower mortgage rates this autumn,” said NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun. “However, inventory growth is beginning to stall. With distressed property sales at historic lows and housing wealth at an all-time high, homeowners are in no rush to list their properties during the winter months.”
Unsold inventory declined 5.9% from the prior month to 1.43 million units in November. That brings the market to the equivalent of 4.2 months of supply at the current sales pace.
Still, inventory was 7.5% higher than at this time last year, and months supply was well above last year’s reading of 3.8 months, indicating a more balanced market.
Homebuyers got a boost from lower mortgage rates, which averaged 6.24% in November, their lowest monthly average in more than a year, according to Freddie Mac.
“Mortgage rates were slow to relent in 2025, remaining above 6.5% until mid-September, providing a notable drag on earlier year home sales,” says Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “November homebuyers, who would likely have gone under contract in September and October, benefited from rates near their lowest levels in a year, and fortunately, mortgage rates remain near this low level.”
Meanwhile, home prices continued to creep higher, with the median sales price of existing homes rising 1.2% from a year ago to $409,200.
“Wage growth is outpacing home price gains, which improves housing affordability,” says Yun. “Still, future affordability could be hampered if housing supply fails to keep pace with demand.”
Home sale remain historically low
Despite the uptick in November, home sales remain at historically low levels, with buyers constrained by affordability concerns and economic uncertainty—and sellers feeling little pressure to make a deal.
“Everyone keeps waiting for the housing marked to come roaring back, but it’s just not happening, even with mortgage rates pulling back modestly,” says Bankrate Housing Market Analyst Jeff Ostrowski. “One wildcard: The unemployment rate is up and economic uncertainty is spreading, neither of which bodes well for home sales.”
The Realtor.com economic research team’s national housing forecast predicts gradual improvements in affordability conditions in 2026, but no dramatic upheavals.
The forecast predicts mortgage rates will average 6.3% across 2026, a slight improvement from the 6.6% full-year average expected for 2025 but still well above the 4% historic average recorded from 2013 to 2019.
Nationally, home prices will continue to grow 2.2% through the end of next year, after rising by 2% in 2025, the forecast indicates. However, incomes and overall inflation are expected to continue rising faster than growth in home prices, delivering a slight boost to affordability.
“Looking ahead, my expectation is that mortgage rates remain near their current levels for most of 2026,” says the economist Hale.
“This will be sufficient to bring about a very modest improvement in affordability, whether we’re measuring monthly payments outright or monthly payments relative to incomes,” she adds. “This should be enough to bump sales modestly higher in 2026, though they’ll remain historically low.”