Housing Market Stuck in Molasses as Listings Decline
9/22/2025 | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
Sales stall as rates top 6%, listings fall, and deals get canceled.
High rates, tariffs and tight supply have slowed listings and sales, with more last-minute cancellations. Many owners are locked into sub-4% loans while new mortgages top 6%, a gap that adds about $398 a month for a typical swap. The squeeze is sharper in the state’s big metros, and the median home price is just under $900,000.
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SoCal Matters is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal
Housing Market Stuck in Molasses as Listings Decline
9/22/2025 | 2mVideo has Closed Captions
High rates, tariffs and tight supply have slowed listings and sales, with more last-minute cancellations. Many owners are locked into sub-4% loans while new mortgages top 6%, a gap that adds about $398 a month for a typical swap. The squeeze is sharper in the state’s big metros, and the median home price is just under $900,000.
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Learn Moreabout PBS online sponsorshipWhat happens when you take high interest rates, unpredictable tariffs, a shortage of homes, a 50 year old property tax law and mix them together.
A housing market stuck in molasses post pandemic prices and interest rates have stalled out and unaffordable highs nationally, keeping buyers at bay.
Sellers unable to fetch the still higher prices they want or backing out of the market in droves.
The result is a cooling effect on the housing market, with a slowdown in new listings, stagnant sales and an uptick in deals canceled at the last minute.
If the country as a whole is in the middle of a housing market, drought conditions look especially parched in California, according to online real estate broker Redfin, there were double digit year over year declines in new home listings, and San Francisco listings are also down in San Diego, Riverside, Anaheim and Oakland.
California's housing market has been in the kind of holding pattern for years, said Oscar Wei, an economist with the California Association of Realtors.
He said that unanswered questions about the future of the economy, tariffs and what they might mean for inflation, the stock market and how all of the above will influence interest rates, are likely holding both buyers and sellers back.
An analysis by economists at the Federal Housing Finance Agency found that the majority of borrowers in mid 2024 had a rate below 4%.
A typical new mortgage on the other hand, is likely to come with a rate of more than 6%.
That difference comes with a steep financial price tag.
If the average mortgage pair were to swap out their existing loan for one at the new rate, they would pay another $398 per month.
The agency researchers estimated the effect is even more pronounced in California, where property values are particularly high.
That makes it even more expensive for current homeowners to pick up and move.
The median sales price on a single family home across the state is just shy of $900,000, according to the State Association of Realtors.
For Calmatters, I'm Ben Christopher.
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SoCal Matters is a local public television program presented by PBS SoCal