Homebuyers aren’t the only ones feeling stuck at this time.
Sellers haven’t budged either, with builders tapping the brakes, and first-timers are seeing prices float out of reach.
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Though not a crash, the U.S. housing market sure doesn’t look like it's in a boom, either.
With record-high prices, frozen inventory, and mortgage rates punching near the 7% mark, the entire system feels jammed up.
That said, one billionaire with a history of bold calls says this freeze might be the calm before something much bigger.
Buyers sidelined, sellers stuck as rates freeze the market
As mentioned earlier, the U.S. housing market isn’t crashing, but it feels like it's frozen.
Following a couple of years of rising interest rates and tight supply, sales have been stuck in neutral, while prices remain stubbornly high.
In June, the median price of an existing home reached a record $435,300.
That’s a considerable 2% gain from last year. But here’s the catch: sales dipped 2.7% to just 3.93 million units, hitting a nine-month low.
A big part of this is that mortgage rates have crept near 7%, keeping both buyers and sellers in a crippling chokehold.
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For buyers, higher borrowing costs have resulted in more than a 50% increase in monthly mortgage payments.
Hence, a $300,000 loan today would cost about $580 more per month compared to what it did in 2021.
Naturally, that’s pushed millions to the sidelines, especially with first-time buyers whose stagnant wages and high home prices have squeezed them.
For sellers, the incentive to list is also fading.
Anyone who’s sitting on a sub-3% mortgage isn’t looking to give it up to jump into a 7% market.
That essentially means that inventory levels are still tight, even though they’re up 15.9% from a year ago, remaining mostly well below pre-pandemic benchmarks.
In hot markets like Texas and Florida, even desperate sellers are cutting prices, with some listings on Zillow down more than 25%.
Builders aren’t picking up the slack, either.
High financing costs and volatile material prices have led many to pull back. That’s worsening the estimated 4 to 7 million home shortfall.
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Moreover, analysts at Fortune are now warning that 2025 could see the lowest annual home sales in three decades, fueling the debate over the worst housing market in America.
Billionaire Jeff Greene sees a housing market surge
Jeff Greene has built a fortune reading the tea leaves, and currently, he’s betting on a housing market reset that starts with a bang.
The billionaire real estate mogul told Business Insider that home prices are likely to soar once we see rate cuts.
“If rates come down, we’ll have a huge boom in housing prices,” Greene said, underscoring the pent-up demand among buyers and sellers holding out for lower financing costs.
Mortgage rates have hovered around 7%, compared to under 3% just four years ago.
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That’s effectively kept a big chunk of inventory off the market, with homeowners unwilling to give up ultra-low fixed rates they locked in during the pandemic.
But Greene believes that dynamic could flip if we see some action from the Federal Reserve.
His prediction is that we could see a flood of listings from homeowners who can finally refinance and trade up or move out. Hence, that could be a massive rare shot at affordability for first-time buyers.
But Greene’s optimism has a hard stop.
He warns that behind the scenes, the U.S. economy is on shaky ground.
“The economy’s been running on printed money for a long time,” Greene said.
He points to skyrocketing national debt, rising interest costs, and declining immigration as structural risks that push the country into a “downward spiral.”
Even as stocks continue posting record highs and President Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act injects fresh stimulus, Greene says the debt math doesn’t work forever.
“We’ve just kicked the can down the road,” he said. “You can drive 130 miles an hour… but at some point, somebody’s going to pull out in front of you and you’re going to die.”
That warning, from someone who called out the infamous 2008 crash, carries a ton of weight.
Greene isn’t calling for an immediate collapse, but he’s signaling that today’s boom comes with its fair share of risks.
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