The 2025 spring housing market will be a wild experience, largely driven by increases or decreases in mortgage rates. As anyone who has ever bought or sold a house knows, historically, spring is the busiest season for real estate. Homebuyers scramble to close deals ahead of summertime and the start of a new school year.

The best time to sell a home depends largely on local market conditions, with every year being different. After an extreme, unprecedented seller’s market during the last few years, the housing market is starting to normalize again. Mortgage rates, of course, will be key to how this shift unfolds.

The spring is usually the height of home buying frenzy with the onset of warmer weather. And nationally in 2024, homes listed during the final two weeks of May sold for an average of 1.6% higher prices than other times of year. This year’s increase was a stellar $5,600 for the average U.S. residence.

For the week ending March 13, the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.65%, compared to 6.63% the week before. These are key rates that influence buyer activity and market conditions.

Rather, the spike in activity that usually occurs in the spring housing market instead pushed into the fall of last year. When the Federal Reserve raised borrowing costs in March, the normal spring blip was curtailed. Just like that, the arrival of the pandemic in March 2020 delivered a deep freeze on the booming spring market.

The housing market boomed in 2021 as home buying and selling activity skyrocketed. Much of this boom was driven by record low mortgage rates, which brought a flood of desperate buyers to the market. If mortgage rates play nice, the market should keep on normalizing away from a red-hot seller’s market of the previous two years.

According to data, home sellers who listed their properties during the week of April 13-19 could have sold for approximately $27,000 more than at other times of the year. This shows just how much money can be made (or not lost) by having the foresight to time the market perfectly.

it's not certain that this year's spring home shopping season will follow last year's pattern.

  • Zillow

Conventional wisdom among real estate agents is to tell home sellers to put their houses on the market when they’re at their peak appearance.

Nobody wants to look out at a bleak city full of snow.

  • Pendleton

You're trying to still capture the nicest view possible.

  • Pendleton

It’s a unique moment to be a seller, said Joel Berner, senior economist for Realtor.com. Contacting them now will put you ahead of the curve and your competitors in the market.

This is the right time of year to list to get ahead.

  • Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com