Housing Market Shift 2025: 9 States Where Buyers Are Gaining the Upper Hand
After years of frenzied competition and soaring home prices, the U.S. housing market is beginning to cool and rebalance and in some places, buyers are finally regaining leverage.
A new analysis from ResiClub reveals that nine states have surpassed their pre-pandemic inventory levels, indicating a notable shift in supply-demand dynamics. For homebuyers who’ve been stuck on the sidelines due to high prices and low inventory, this trend might just be the break they’ve been waiting for.
🏘️ What Rising Inventory Really Means
In the real estate world, active listings and months of supply are two of the most closely watched indicators. These metrics help gauge whether a market favors buyers or sellers:
- When active listings increase and homes take longer to sell, it usually signals softer pricing and more negotiating room for buyers.
- When inventory is low, homes sell quickly, and sellers can often command top dollar.
Between April 2024 and April 2025, active inventory rose by 30.6%, jumping from 734,318 to 959,251 homes for sale. While that’s still 15.6% below April 2019 levels, it represents a significant rebound from the extreme shortage that plagued the market during the pandemic boom years.
📍 These 9 States Are Now Favoring Buyers
According to ResiClub, the following nine states have inventory levels above pre-pandemic norms, a sign that buyers are gaining the upper hand:
- Arizona
- Colorado
- Florida
- Hawaii
- Idaho
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Utah
- Washington
These states saw explosive price growth during the pandemic, driven by a surge in migration, remote work trends, and historically low mortgage rates. Now, as demand has cooled and mortgage rates have risen, more listings are sitting on the market and prices are adjusting.
📉 What’s Driving the Shift?
There are a few key reasons why these markets are softening:
- Affordability Pressure: Home prices in many of these areas got too far ahead of local income levels. With mortgage rates still elevated, monthly payments have become unsustainable for many buyers.
- Slowing Migration: The pandemic-driven migration boom has faded. Fewer people are moving to once-popular destinations like Austin, Boise, or Tampa, reducing the demand pressure that once drove prices sky-high.
- Surge in New Construction: Builders in the Sun Belt and Gulf regions have been active over the past few years. Now that demand is cooling, they’re offering discounts, rate buy-downs, and incentives to move inventory. This has created more competition for sellers of existing homes.
One-year change in active housing inventory for sale: Shift between April 2024 and April 2025
Between April 2024 and April 2025, the U.S. housing market experienced a significant shift, with active listings increasing by 30.6%, reaching 959,251 homes for sale. This marks a substantial rise from the 734,318 listings recorded in April 2024, indicating a trend toward a more balanced market.
🏠 Active Housing Inventory (April, Yearly Snapshot)
| Year | Active Listings (April) | 📈 / 📉 |
|---|---|---|
| 2017 | 1,198,424 | 📉 |
| 2018 | 1,102,064 | 📉 |
| 2019 | 1,137,198 | 📈 |
| 2020 | 941,733 | 📉 |
| 2021 | 435,663 | 📉 |
| 2022 | 379,978 | 📉 |
| 2023 | 562,966 | 📈 |
| 2024 | 734,318 | 📈 |
| 2025 | 959,251 | 📈 |
🔍 Key Insights:
- Lowest inventory was recorded in April 2022, at just 379,978 homes, during the height of the pandemic housing boom.
- Inventory has more than doubled from 2022 to 2025, rising to 959,251 homes.
- Even with this surge, 2025 levels remain ~15.6% below April 2019, the last “normal” pre-pandemic market year.
- The year-over-year increase from April 2024 to April 2025 is a significant +30.6%, signaling a shift in buyer-seller dynamics in many U.S. markets.
🧭 Meanwhile, Some Markets Are Still Tight
While inventory is up nationally, not all regions are seeing relief.
Markets in the Midwest and Northeast such as parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York still remain inventory-constrained. These areas didn’t experience the same speculative boom as the Sun Belt and are now holding steadier, with sellers maintaining more power.
In these states, buyers can still expect multiple offers and less room to negotiate.
📅 Looking Ahead: What 2026 and 2027 Could Bring
If inventory continues to grow at the current pace about +225,000 homes per year the U.S. housing market could look dramatically different by 2027:
- By April 2026, listings may hit 1.18 million
- By April 2027, we could reach 1.41 million homes for sale
That would put the market close to or above 2017-2019 levels, restoring a more balanced playing field for buyers and sellers alike.
💡 The Big Picture: A Return to Balance?
The pandemic housing boom created an unsustainable market. Low mortgage rates, high demand, and limited inventory pushed prices to record highs and left many Americans priced out.
Now, with inventory rising and demand normalizing, we’re witnessing a slow correction not a crash, but a recalibration.
Yes, prices are still rising in many markets, but the pace has cooled. And in these nine states, at least, buyers are finally catching a break.
🤔 What Should Buyers Do Now?
If you’re house hunting in one of the nine states above, this is a time to be strategic:
- Compare listings over time many sellers are now reducing prices.
- Ask your agent about builder incentives new construction may offer better terms than resale homes.
- Don’t be afraid to negotiate sellers are increasingly willing to deal.
The window of opportunity is opening, and it’s the most favorable it’s been for buyers in years
Responses