Even as housing markets cool in many regions, home sellers are still walking away with healthy profits.
During Q3 2025, the median home sale generated a 49.9% return, or about $123,100 in raw profit, according to ATTOM’s Home Sales Report. The profit margin is up 0.6% quarter-over-quarter, but still below the 55.4% average profit margin sellers saw during Q3 2024.
“Profit margins remained steady and high throughout the traditionally busier summer selling season,” said ATTOM CEO Rob Barber. “While continuously rising prices could have chased away buyers and slackened demand, the recent dip in mortgage rates may be helping to keep more people in the market.”
The typical seller’s return has held at just below 50% over the last three quarters, but has been dropping since the mid-2022 peak of 60% when the pandemic resulted in people buying larger homes. Before 2020, home seller profit margins were at around 30%, according to ATTOM data.
As profit margins have been steadily dropping from their peak, home prices are rising. The median national sales price during Q3 was $370,000, up 1.2% quarter-over-quarter and 3.4% year-over-year.
The metro areas with the biggest annual drops in profit margin were in Florida, starting with Ocala, down from 103.9% to 55.1%, and Punta Gorda, down from 88.3% to 58%. Vallejo, California, followed with a decrease from 66.4% to 43%. Florida’s North Port-Sarasota and Port St. Lucie followed.
The metros with the largest annual increases in home sale profit margins were:
- St. George, Utah, up from 26.3% to 37.2%
- Gulfport, Mississippi, up from 26.2% to 35.7%
- Augusta, South Carolina, up from 37.8% to 43.7%
- Lexington, Kentucky, up from 42.9% to 48.6%
- Dayton, Ohio, up from 55.1% to 60.7%
Among larger metros, or those with a population over 1 million, the biggest annual drops were in:
- Tampa, down from 70.7% to 54.3%
- Seattle, down from 93.6% to 80.2%
- Fresno, California, down from 70.9% to 57.7%
- Boston, down from 81.8% to 70%
- Jacksonville, Florida, down from 56.7% to 45.2%
While Florida experienced the biggest annual drops in profit margins, Texas metros saw the lowest margins overall. Among the biggest metro areas, the lowest margins came from:
- New Orleans at 19.6%
- San Antonio at 22.8%
- Houston at 30%
- Austin at 31.8%
- Dallas at 33.5%
The large metro areas with the largest margins are as follows:
- San Jose at 94.3%
- Seattle at 80.2%
- Buffalo, New York, at 80%
- Rochester, New York, at 77.3%
- Hartford, Connecticut, at 75%
Holding periods and transaction trends shift
According to ATTOM, homeowners are holding properties longer before selling. In Q3, the average tenure an owner held their home for was 8.39 years before selling—the longest average in at least 25 years, and up from 8.13 years in the previous quarter.
Other notable trends highlighted were sales by lenders and all-cash sales.
In Q3, homes sold by banks or other lenders accounted for 1.2% of all sales, lower than the 1.3% last quarter.
Nationwide, 38.9% of home sales were done through all-cash transactions, up from 37.6% at the same time last year.
Other notable patterns include:
- Homes sold to institutional investors accounted for 6.4% of nationwide sales
- 8.3% of home purchases made during Q3 were made using Federal Housing Administration (FHA) loans
