The U.S. housing market appears more balanced, with 44% of real estate agents in the CNBC Housing Market Survey for the second quarter of 2025 reporting an equilibrium between buyers and sellers. This figure marks an increase from the 30% of agents who reported a balanced market in the third quarter of the previous year.

Home prices experienced a slight increase of just under 1% compared to a year ago, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index. Despite this, asking prices in June were down 2.5% year over year, according to Realtor.com. This represents the largest annual drop since Realtor.com began tracking this metric in 2017 and marks the eighth consecutive month of declines.

Real estate agent Jeremy Kane said, "It certainly feels like, depending on the home, depending on the neighborhood, depending on the condition and the price point, that both the buyer and the seller do have a little bit of leverage." Bruce Jones, another agent, stated, "No one really seems to be fighting me much on price like they used to." He added, "We're not really seeing huge decreases in prices." Jones further commented, "If it's priced correctly, it is moving." Martha Thorn, an agent, communicated the importance of correct pricing: "I always tell sellers that I'm in the business of selling homes, not storing them, and so you really need to put a property at the right price in order to get it sold."

Buyer concerns are shifting, with mortgage rates and prices being the primary issues reported by agents during the second quarter. In the second-quarter survey, 37% of agents cited mortgage rates as their buyers' biggest concern, an increase from 26% at the end of the previous year. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate peaked at 6.75% on May 19, and has since remained around 6.6% since mid-May. Concerns over inventory among buyers have decreased, according to agents.

The current number of homes listed for sale stands at 1.1 million, according to Realtor.com, an increase from approximately 614,000 homes at this time in 2023. New listings in June rose 2.4% compared to the previous year, and overall inventory was up just under 2% from a year ago. Home sales in May were 3% higher than in May of the previous year, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Contract fall-throughs have decreased, with 40% of survey respondents reporting at least one contract fall through in the second quarter, down from 51% in the first quarter of the year. Looking ahead, 19% of respondents in the second-quarter survey expect sales to improve in the near future. This is a decline from the third quarter of the previous year, when 48% of respondents held this expectation. Conversely, 67% of agents in the second-quarter survey believe sales will remain consistent. Real estate agent Joel Eronko noted, "The challenge isn't a lack of buyers, it's a psychology gap."