The median home sale price rose 2.4 percent year-over year — the biggest increase since March 2025 —as house hunters came off the sidelines amid a stabilizing job market, according to a report from Redfin.
The April jobs report showed stronger-than-expected hiring, reducing recession risk. This likely helped fuel a pop in housing demand. Pending home sales last month hit the highest level since February 2023, rising 2 percent from the month before — the largest increase since March 2025.
Existing home sales climbed to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.33 million, the highest level since February 2023.
“Homebuyer demand increased significantly at the end of March following a relatively quiet period in January and February. This is the first time post-pandemic I’ve felt the frenzy and comeback of a true spring market,” Dawn Kane, a Redfin Premier real estate agent who splits her time between Maryland and Pennsylvania, said in a release. “Still, sellers must maintain realistic pricing strategies. Market data and buyer activity indicate that overpriced homes remain on the market longer, while competitively priced properties sell more quickly and efficiently, often receiving multiple offers.”
The April report marks the first release under Redfin’s updated monthly housing data methodology. Previously, national counts such as active listings were based on a sample of representative counties scaled upward to approximate the total size of the housing market. Redfin has since removed that scaling in favor of direct aggregation across 3,000-plus counties.
Active listings of homes for sale last month hit the highest level since March 2020, rising 1.3 percent from a month earlier — the largest increase in a year. New listings climbed 2.7 percent month-over-month to the highest level since July 2022.
The typical home that went under contract in April did so in 49 days, one day faster than a month earlier. That marks the second month in a row in which homes sold faster than they did during the prior month. The last time home-selling speed was increasing on a month-over-month basis was July 2024.
While the housing market has been heating up, it’s still more sluggish than it was in recent years, according to Redfin. Selling speed is increasing on a monthly basis, but homes still take longer to sell than they did a year ago, and sales and listings remain below pre-pandemic levels.
Roughly three of every five (60.5 percent) homes that sold in April went for less than their original list price. This share has now been declining for six consecutive months.
Homebuyers have been scoring large discounts in recent years because it’s a buyer’s market and they have negotiating power given they are far outnumbered by sellers. But these discounts are likely getting harder to come by because homebuyer demand is growing, and sellers are increasingly pricing their homes more competitively, reducing the need to offer discounts. The median new list price rose just 0.9 percent year-over-year in April, less than half the gain of the median sale price. List prices are more of a leading indicator than sale prices because they reflect how sellers are thinking about pricing now as opposed to how they were thinking about pricing several months ago.
Median sale prices rose most from a year earlier in San Francisco (10.7 percent), Detroit (10.1 percent) and Providence, R.I. (9 percent). They fell most in Dallas (-3.8 percent), Seattle (-3.3 percent) and San Jose, Calif. (-3.2 percent).
Pending home sales rose most in West Palm Beach, Fla. (39.8 percent), San Francisco (20.8 percent) and San Jose (19.1 percent). They fell most in Houston (-7 percent), Seattle (-4.6 percent) and Warren, Mich. (-4.5 percent).
Closed home sales rose most in San Francisco (23 percent), West Palm Beach (9 percent) and Milwaukee (8.3 percent). They fell most in Detroit (-13.5 percent), San Antonio (-12.4 percent) and Nassau County, N.Y. (-11.2 percent).
New listings rose most in Montgomery County, Pa. (20.7 percent), New Brunswick, N.J. (18 percent) and Pittsburgh (17.8%). They fell most in Riverside, CA (-24.2 percent), Anaheim, Calif. (-18.1 percent) and Los Angeles (-14.9 percent).
Active listings rose most in Seattle (20.8 percent), Milwaukee (16.3 percent) and Nashville (14.4 percent). They fell most in Riverside (-18.8 percent), Jacksonville, Fla. (-17.8 percent) and Anaheim (-15.7 percent).
In San Antonio, the typical home that went under contract did so in 88 days, which was 16 days longer than a year earlier — the biggest increase among the metros analyzed. Next came Houston (+14 days) and Nashville (+13 days). Five metros saw decreases: Newark, N.J. (-6 days), West Palm Beach, Fla. (-2 days), Riverside, Calif. (-1 day), Jacksonville, Fla. (-1 day) and St. Louis (-1 day).
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