Sellers Do What No One Expects | Dec. 2025 Housing Market Update

December 22, 2025

AI Summary

5 min read

🎙️ The Voices & The Context

The Format: This solo-hosted market update delivers a data-packed analysis of 2025's housing trends heading into 2026, blending optimism with caution in an analytical and reassuring tone that debunks crash fears while highlighting emerging opportunities.
The Format: This is a host-led monologue structured as a narrative market report.
The Key Players:
If Just Hosts: Dave Meyer, BiggerPockets' head of real estate investing and 15-year veteran analyst, delivers the update alone with confident, data-driven authority, bantering lightly against "crash bros" while focusing on national housing metrics.

🗝️ Key Themes & Topics

Dave Meyer unpacks 2025's housing shifts through fresh data, emphasizing stability over panic as the year ends, covering prices, affordability, supply dynamics, and distress signals for investors eyeing 2026.

Topic 1: Home Prices. National prices rose a modest 1.4% year-over-year per Redfin, signaling a correction rather than crash—flat in real terms amid cooling appreciation from 5% to below long-term 3.5% averages; 105 of top 300 metros (down from 120 peak) see declines, heavily concentrated in Florida (e.g., Punta Gorda -13%, Cape Coral -10%) and Gulf regions, while Midwest holds gains at 2-3%.
Topic 2: Mortgage Rates & Affordability. Rates dropped from 7.25% peaks to **6.

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What you'll learn

1 **(00:00) December 2025 Housing Market Update Introduction**
2 **(01:49) Home Prices: National Trends and Regional Declines**
3 **(05:17) Mortgage Rates: Positive Decline and 2026 Outlook**
4 **(09:14) Housing Affordability: Best Levels in 2.5 Years**
5 **(15:59) Inventory Dynamics: Stabilization via Seller Behavior**
6 **(25:33) Market Stress Indicators: No Crash Signals**
7 **(37:52) 2025 Wrap-Up and 2026 Outlook**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

This could be the most encouraging sign for the housing market in years. It’s the final month of 2025, and the housing market has flipped from this time last year. Real prices are down, mortgage rates are near a percent lower, inventory is stabilizing, and affordability…it’s actually improving. But hints at a wave of underwater mortgages are making people nervous. With the number rising, is this the “distress” signal many have been waiting for?

Welcome to our last housing market update of 2025. We’re getting into it all: home price, mortgage rate, and inventory updates, plus a new seller trend that is causing serious confusion, and could be the final nail in the “housing market crash” coffin. With sellers doing what nobody expects, next year could get interesting.

More homeowners are falling “underwater” on their mortgages. Is this a 2008 repeat or just a blip on the real estate radar? Some economists are worried about rising delinquencies, but a high-level view of the data could point to an entirely different conclusion.

In This Episode We Cover

Sellers do what nobody expects, and it’s killing the “crash” narrative

Underwater mortgages are surging, but are homeowners really in danger?

The best news we’ve had in three years? A massive win for housing affordability

Mortgage rate momentum and whether now is the right time to refinance

The key affordability improvements we’ve seen since the start of 2025

And So Much More!