More than 375,000 homes came onto the market in March, an increase of nearly 9% compared with the same month last year, according to online real estate platform Zillow's March 2025 Market Report. That increase represents a strong showing from sellers during what is typically a busy time of year in homebuying. With more homes on the market, competition among buyers cooled and springtime growth in home prices slowed to a rate not seen since 2018, with the typical home value rising just 0.2% month over month in March, unadjusted for seasonality.
While sellers leaned on the gas, buyers didn’t keep up. Newly pending sales were essentially flat compared to last year, even though average mortgage rates were lower this year — 6.65% on average in March, compared to 6.82% a year before. About 265,000 listings went into a pending sale in March — 110,000 fewer than came on the market.
This mismatch pushed inventory up to 1.15 million homes — 19% over last year — the most inventory buyers have seen in March since 2020. Inventory now stands 24% below 2018-2019 averages for this time of year. That’s a noticeable improvement from March 2023 and March 2024, when inventory was down 43% and 36%, respectively, compared to pre-pandemic levels. Read more