In the months leading up to November’s election, many real estate professionals shared a similar sentiment: The market will pick up once the election is over.
But the post-election euphoria has given way to a more sober assessment. Real estate agents interviewed this week at an industry gathering in New York City signaled they are settling in for the long haul.
The post-election housing market “is kind of disappointing,” said April Freese, an agent with Realty Associates in Houston. Though her territory has shown a slight increase in showings following the election, Freese said that hasn’t translated to an increase in sales activity yet.
That’s a tangible vibe shift from the week of the election — just two months ago — when thousands of real estate agents gathered in Boston for another conference. At the time, many said they anticipated a post-election market boom, especially because a Trump presidency signaled a bright future for the economy. Indeed, stock markets popped shortly after the election.
“Real estate is going to be so good. I really feel like it is,” an agent from Nebraska said at the time. Another agent said she expected to see immediate mortgage rate drops.
But real estate activity hasn't changed much since then, some agents said at the Inman Connect conference in New York. Inman is an online real estate news outlet that also hosts conferences. Homes.com, owned by CoStar Group, is a conference sponsor.
Of course, the effects of Trump’s administration were never going to be immediate. But some measures have actually gotten worse since the election.
Take mortgage rates for example. Data from mortgage giant Freddie Mac showed that the week before the election, the 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage was averaging about 6.72%. But the week before the inauguration, that rate averaged 6.96%. Trump told leaders of the World Economic Forum this week that he will demand rates come down.
Josh Dearling, an agent with Serhant in Charlotte, North Carolina, said he expects the president’s policies will benefit the industry soon.
“Trump is in office now, and there’s a lot of good things he’s already doing,” he said in an interview. “I think slowly but surely, the rates will come down. It’ll just take time.”
Local responses
All told, agents reported that activity in their local markets has been driven less by reactions to the election and more by the nature of the residential real estate market these days.
“People were just so worried and weary about what was going to happen," said Charlene Dearling, an agent with Serhant from Charlotte, in an interview. "I don’t think right after the election anything changed,”
In some markets, buyers and sellers have been more focused on the here and now.
“I really haven’t had too many clients say, ‘Oh I’m going to wait until after the election,’” said Maria Lampka, an agent with the Muscato Team in Buffalo, New York, in an interview. “I work with a lot of first-time buyers, a lot of families, those people aren’t — at least from what I’ve heard — taking the election and stuff that much into account.”
Brandy Wuensch, founder of City View Realty Group and the 2025 president of the Austin Board of Realtors in Texas, said her market has been steady and stable for the most part.
“Real estate is hyperlocal,” she said in an interview. “Central Texas is a pretty stable, healthy real estate market. So we haven’t had any large swings.”
Wuensch said she thinks that steadiness has more to do with homebuyers becoming more comfortable with “the new normal,” of higher mortgage rates and tighter inventories. Also, some ,want to get into the market before it gets more competitive, she said.
New policies
There’s also the question of what Trump administration policies could mean for the long-term outlook in the housing market.
After his first day in office, the president already had signed a slew of executive orders and issued a memo directing the appropriate agencies to “drastically lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply.”
During his campaign, Trump pledged to reduce mortgage rates by slashing inflation, opening federally owned land to new construction, promoting homeownership through tax incentives and cutting “unnecessary regulations that raise housing costs.”
Some agents said they’re still waiting to see the details of those promises, though.
“I feel like I heard more on Kamala’s agenda regarding the housing shortage,” Lampka said, referring to former Vice President Kamala Harris, whom Trump beat in the election. “She was talking about tangible [initiatives] that she was going to put into place…Now that Trump’s president, I’m not sure.”
Even if the president implements policies that seek to spur homebuilding or combat affordability, it’s unclear when they would take effect in the market.
When it comes to housing supply, any solution is likely to take time.
“It’s not done overnight,” Wuensch said. “We underbuilt for so long, so it’s going to take some time to catch up.”
Freese, the agent from Houston, also noted that “developments are years in the making. "So, it will be time before any policy changes could upend the current inventory trend," she said.
Mortgage rates, on the other hand, have increased in recent months because the expected weaker economy has yet to fully materialize and there is uncertainty among investors about the new administration’s plans.
That’s because the mortgage market is more closely linked to the market for 10-year treasury bonds or the rate the government pays to borrow money from investors. And inflation is driving up the 10-year Treasury rate, according to Melissa Cohn, regional vice president at William Raveis Mortgage.
Even so, agents expressed optimism for the market, especially with spring — a historically busy time for homebuying and selling — on the horizon.
“People are adjusting to the new norms of real estate,” Wuensch said, “and people need homes.”