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Median sales price for existing homes breaks monthly record

Economist touts potential for capital gains tax and rate cuts to boost housing market

Houses in the White Oaks Farm neighborhood in Delaware's capital city. (Jessica Stoddard/Homes.com)
Houses in the White Oaks Farm neighborhood in Delaware's capital city. (Jessica Stoddard/Homes.com)

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The median sales price for existing single-family homes and condos reached a record high in June, a sign of the ongoing insufficient supply of properties for sale.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the price climbed 2% from its record-high level one year earlier to $435,300. While the 1.53 million existing houses for sale were up about 16% from the same month in 2024, inventory actually fell 0.6% in June from May.

“Multiple years of undersupply are driving the record-high home price,” NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said in a statement. “More supply is needed to increase the share of first-time homebuyers in the coming years.”

Sales of existing homes fell 2.7% from May’s tally to a seasonally adjusted 3.93 million. There was no change in the number of homes sold from a year earlier.

If the average rate for a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage, which stood at 6.75% last week, were to fall to 6%, that would lead to 500,000 more home sales, including for 160,000 people who are currently renting their homes, Yun said, citing a recent analysis the realtors association conducted.

Exempting more homeowners from the capital gains tax would prompt many of them to sell their properties, Yun said, noting that the NAR supports a bill introduced in Congress earlier this year by Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-California) to double the tax exclusion. President Donald Trump said during a White House meeting Tuesday that he is interested in ending the tax altogether.

The record June median sales price can be partially attributed to the month being the prime time for families to buy homes as they make moves before enrolling their children in new school districts, Yun said.

On a regional level, sales were down from May in the Midwest, Northeast and South, while the West saw a slight increase of 1.4%. The largest decline was in the Northeast at 8%. Over the past year, sales increased marginally in the Midwest and South and fell about 4% in the Northeast and West.

While the sales of houses priced above $1 million had dipped in May, perhaps due to turmoil in the stock market, that brief trend ended in June with a 14% increase in luxury home sales, Yun said. Sales of properties priced between $250,000 and $500,000 were up 9% in June.

Without a cut in mortgage rates, the market can expect to see incremental growth in home sales for the rest of the year, he said. If the supply of homes on the market doesn’t accelerate, prices are expected to keep inching up.

“Existing home sales were weaker than expected in June, but we don't think the decline marks the start of a sustained downturn in sales,” Nancy Vanden Houten, lead economist at Oxford Economics, said in a statement. “We look for sales to move sideways over the balance of 2025, before recovering in 2026 as rate cuts by the Federal Reserve get underway in earnest.”