2024 Housing Market Year In Review: A Tale of Supply, Demand, and Mortgage Rates

14 housing trends that defined the year, including record house prices, a mortgage rate rollercoaster, and a sales sea-saw

The 2024 housing market in many ways mirrored 2023: too few homes on the market, and not enough buyers willing to face high prices and mortgage rates. This pushed house prices higher and kept affordability – remarkable, given that 2023 ended as the for homebuying on record. Nearly thought they’d never own a home. 

The market was so difficult that the median homebuying age jumped to a record – than 2023. A greater proportion of homebuyers continued to get priced out. 

Many homebuyers sat out the year , waiting for affordability to improve. Others of waiting and decided to take the leap, even with the market headwinds. The presidential election also injected and .

However, there were some key improvements, including more housing inventory, declining inflation, and improved renter affordability.

Below are trends, data points, and visuals that defined the 2024 housing market. 

All data was aggregated from January through November 2024 unless otherwise stated. Data came from Redfin, Rent., the U.S. Census Bureau, FRED, NAR, and/or public records. For questions about metrics, read our .

1. Home prices reached consecutive all-time highs

The U.S. median sale price reached an all-time high in July when it hit $442,000, one month after June recorded a high of $438,000. Both eclipsed 2022’s record of $432,000. House prices hit record highs for . 

When averaging for the entire year, 2024’s median sale price of $428,200 far surpassed any previous year in history, beating last year’s by $20,000.

“Supply and demand played starring roles again this year,” said , Redfin Chief Economist. “The combination of low supply and lackluster demand gave buyers the reality of a hot market, even though few homes changed hands. This unusual trend helped push prices steadily higher throughout the year, which was bad news for everyone except homesellers looking to downsize or rent.”

Low-income residents were hit especially hard. who made less than $50,000 had to skip meals to afford payments.

2. San Jose was the most expensive metro area for homebuyers in 2024

Beating out San Francisco, San Jose became the most expensive metropolitan area for homebuyers in the country in 2024. The average monthly median sale price in San Jose was $1,566,100, up 8.5% ($133,120) from last year. Otherwise, the top ten most expensive markets were unchanged from 2023. 

House prices generally rose across the board, with only Austin and San Antonio posting year-over-year decreases. Housing affordability became an crisis this year, among lower-income groups, and was a issue for voters in the .

• The top six most expensive metros were all in .
• saw the largest year-over-year price increase in the country, rising 12.5%.

7. Rents held steady

The median U.S. asking rent reached a high of $1,649 this year, similar to last year and a continued reprieve from the pandemic-era . Rents stayed mostly flat all year and leading into 2025. The median asking rent across all months through November averaged $1,629 – just $8 more than last year. 

But when paired with slowly rising wages, rentals actually became slightly more affordable. Rents for and saw notable improvements. 

The calmer market was driven by a of new apartments completed this year after the construction boom in 2021-2022. Now, supply is outpacing demand, and new units are renting . Apartment construction has since .

Rents fell fastest in the Sun Belt and some coastal metros, which apartments during the pandemic. saw large drops this year. The opposite was true in , which didn’t build as much and were then faced with a supply shortage.

Importantly, though, rents have remained historically unaffordable since the pandemic, skyrocketing from 2019. A record spent more than a third of their income on rent this year, and spent their entire paycheck. Incomes behind rents for years, impacting low-income renters the . This lack of affordability, and the likelihood of facing higher rents in a new apartment, has led to stay put. 

8. New construction slowed down

The U.S. saw an average of 1.35 million new homes started monthly in 2024, down from 1.42 million in 2023 and well below 2022’s 1.55 million. New single-family home construction (excluding rentals) to last year, peaking at 1.13 million in February.

We expect new construction to rise next year, though. “This should have a positive effect on supply in the next few years,” noted , Redfin Senior Economics Manager. “New construction since the Great Recession but has been slowly recovering, peaking just after the pandemic. Construction dipped this year, but builder confidence heading into 2025.”

However, even with post-pandemic improvements, the country is still experiencing a shortage of affordable housing. New construction , and the U.S. has a housing shortage of between .

Homebuilders have backed off since the pandemic-driven building boom, with high mortgage and interest rates hampering buyer demand and pushing up development costs. Many builders are now focused on selling the homes they have. This helps to explain why of houses for sale in September were newly built this year – the lowest share in 3 years.

• California, Oregon, and Utah are among states that of projected housing needs.
• Housing completions fared slightly better than starts, with an annualized rate of in November – a 0.2% year-over-year decrease.
• Permits to build single-family homes this year, but are still post-pandemic highs. 

Data was seasonally adjusted through October 2024. 

9. Housing inventory posted major gains

On average, 1.19 million homes were listed for sale or pending every month through November in 2024, up a massive 15.8% from last year. Monthly inventory peaked at 1.21 million homes in October. 

Inventory rose for a few reasons: decided to test the market; homes sat on the market ; and new housing completions continued to steadily rise.

Active listings, a measure of all homes on the market, have steadily increased since mid-2023, hitting a high of 1.73 million in November. Active listings and pending sales make up the total housing inventory.

Even though inventory has from chronically low supply and the , it still sits below the . There affordable homes on the market.

Inventory is seasonally adjusted and calculated in rolling 90-day periods, e.g., January 2024 data is the three-month period from November 1, 2023, through January 31, 2024. Redfin inventory records date back to 2012. 

10. New listings continued climbing

In line with inventory, new listings posted major gains this year. An average of 544,000 homes were newly listed for sale every month in 2024, up 9% from 2023’s record low. New listings have slowly improved over the past two years.

The rise in listings to translate to sales, though, as high housing costs priced many buyers out of the market. It wasn’t until that market activity really picked up following Fed rate cuts and rises in affordability. 

New listings are seasonally adjusted and calculated in rolling 90-day periods, e.g., January 2024 data is the three-month period from November 1, 2023, through January 31, 2024. Redfin listings records date back to 2012.

11. Months of supply continued its steady recovery

While inventory measures the number of homes currently available for sale, months of supply measures the amount of time it would take those homes to sell. Four to five months of housing supply is considered a balanced market, with more indicating a buyer’s market and fewer indicating a seller’s market. 

The average stock of housing supply across every month in 2023 was 2.8 months, up from 2.5 months in 2023. The market continued to lean towards sellers, but swung closer to buyers in certain markets, especially expensive metros with limited demand. More affordable metros often saw the opposite trend. 

Even though supply rose further in 2024, many buyers had to fight for every home; through the first eight months of the year, of the nation’s homes changed hands – the lowest share since at least the 1990s. The pandemic homebuying boom depleted supply, further hampered by a , which has only started to recover. 

“Supply has slowly pulled itself out of its pandemic-infused slide and continued to gain ground this year,” added Fairweather. “However, it’s still far from a balanced market. Buyers and sellers should to determine how best to navigate their local market.”

• Supply peaked at 3.3 months in January and fared better than last year during the homebuying season.

Supply is seasonally adjusted calculated in rolling 90-day periods, e.g., January 2024 data is the three-month period from November 1, 2023, through January 31, 2024. Redfin supply records date back to 2012.

12. The typical home took more than a month to sell

Homes spent an average of 39 days on the market in 2024 – a day longer than 2023. Home sales continued their from the record-breaking pace seen in 2021-2022, largely because affordability was so strained. 

This slowdown was especially visible in September, when had sat on the market for more than 60 days. The trend into December. That was up from 43.2% in 2023. Previously in May, more than had been on the market for 30 days, up from 60% in 2023. 

However, time-on-market varied widely by metro; homes in affordable metros often sold much more quickly than homes in expensive metros. For example, in May, the typical home in sold in just 8 days, compared to 45 days in Austin. Some pricier West Coast markets, like San Jose, saw jumps in sales to close out the year, too.

As homebuying affordability , people just wanted a home they could afford. 

• Many historically and affordable Sun Belt cities, like Jacksonville, saw demand . Now, they’re and homes are taking longer to sell.
• May and June were the busiest months of the year, with homes spending 32 days on the market. 
• Even though they’re slowing down, homes still sell historically quickly on average.

13. Nearly 31% of homes were purchased with cash in 2024

30.8% of homes were purchased entirely with cash in 2024 – down from 32% last year but still historically elevated. 

All-cash sales generally as the rise and fall of mortgage rates. When rates move down, the percentage of all-cash sales moves down; when rates go up, all cash-sales go up. So, as mortgage rates skyrocketed in 2022, all-cash purchases . They have remained elevated since, but are falling. 

Luxury buyers and investors were to pay in cash. 

“By paying all cash, affluent buyers can bypass interest rates altogether and ,” continued Zhao. “While these are great benefits, they can contribute to inequality between people who own homes and people who don’t, especially since investors tend to toward lower-priced homes.”

• All-cash sales slowly fell throughout the year from a February peak, as rates dipped and homebuying activity returned. 
• Popular, inexpensive metros saw the highest share of cash purchases.
• Many of the most expensive metros saw the lowest share of all-cash purchases, including San Diego (22.1%), Virginia Beach (21.9%), and Seattle (20.7%).