Editor’s note: Econ Review is a roundup of the month’s housing and economic market data reports.
As spring progresses, the industry is awaiting data related to how the season shaped up ahead of another potential boom in activity over the upcoming summer.
Here are some highlights from the housing and economic data that hit the news in April:
Home sales
While home sales are overwhelmingly still troubled as the housing market faces continued headwinds, there were some notable signs of positivity among reports in April.
The latest existing-home sales data from the National Association of Realtors® (NAR), while down 3.6% month-over-month and 1% year-over-year, showed some much-needed growth in inventory. Inventory was up 3% month-over-month and 2.3% year-over-year. The supply of unsold inventory was also up month-over-month and year-over-year.
Additionally, the report saw a year-over-year increase in NAR’s Housing Affordability Index, growing about 9%. All four regions saw year-over-year growth in affordability as well: the Northeast up by 4.1%, the Midwest up by 5.3%, the South up by 10% and the West up by 12.7%.
Despite the nine-month low in sales, and the “slowest pace of March home sales since 2009,” according to Bright MLS Chief Economist Lisa Sturtevant, these positive signs are “welcome development(s) for the spring season.”
Pending home sales data from NAR showed month-over-month growth of 1.5%, the second consecutive monthly increase so far this year.
Realtor.com® Senior Economist Anthony Smith noted that with this report and the positive signs seen in the existing-home sales report, the housing market is entering the spring season with “a few meaningful advantages over last year.” However, he added that as the Iranian conflict persists, the future remains murky.
“Uncertainty around the Iran conflict and choppy rate movements, with borrowing costs already drifting back above 6.3% in the first weeks of April, could trigger a repeat of last spring’s pattern: a market that showed early promise before buyer hesitation pulled activity back,” he continued.
Home prices
Home-price growth continued its trend of depreciating in the latest Case-Shiller Home Price Index, seeing a 0.7% year-over-year gain. This was down from the 0.8% year-over-year gain seen last month, which was characterized by Sturtevant as the “weakest start to a year for home prices since the early 2010s.” The City Composites also weakened both month-over-month and year-over-year, and depreciation spread beyond the Sun Belt (mainly seen in Tampa, Dallas and Phoenix), with notable drops in Denver, Seattle and Washington, D.C.
The trends seen in the Case-Shiller report this month were supported by similar data in other reports, such as Realtor.com®’s latest Monthly Housing Trends report. Realtor.com data saw the median listing price and the median listing price per square foot both fall year-over-year by 1.4% and 2.4%, respectively, with price cuts also decreasing year-over-year in tandem.
Housing construction
While the aforementioned war with Iran continues to put downward pressure on the construction industry through raised oil, gas and energy costs, this month’s housing starts data saw a surprising, but welcome, rise.
The latest Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Census Bureau’s New Residential Construction report saw housing starts rise 10.8% both month-over-month and year-over-year, with rises across the board in single-family starts and multifamily starts. Additionally, the regions only had one outlier that was not positive both month-over-month and year-over-year—the Midwest (up 12.2% month-over-month, but down 0.9% year-over-year).
The rise was attributed to builders “responding to pockets of improving demand,” as noted by National Association of Home Builders Chairman Bill Owens.
Permit data in the same report remains less positive than starts as builders remain cautious, however, not fully diving in on building while challenges persist.
Overall, Owens commented that the uptick in housing starts is a “positive development for residential investment and signals that the sector may be stabilizing.”
Despite the turn of events in housing starts, homebuilder sentiment still remains negative due to the economic uncertainty of rising gas, oil and energy costs. The latest NAHB Housing Market Index saw builder confidence fall once again to 34, remaining well below the 50-point breakeven mark, as builders continue to offer incentives and cut prices to get sales on their homes.
The overall economy
The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee held interest rates steady once again this month. While some economic results were vaguely stable, the looming Iranian conflict and other continued challenges have signalled it is not the time to cut rates.
The latest jobs data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics saw some stability, with 178,000 jobs added and the unemployment rate falling slightly to 4.3%. More jobs are always good news for consumers, and means no increases in interest rates from the Fed. Wage growth has also been outpacing inflation, with growth at 3.5% year-over-year versus 2.4% for inflation.
The PCE price index—the Fed’s favored inflation measure—“met expectations” in its latest report at 2.8% inflation, but is still elevated well away from the organization’s 2% goal. Mohamed A. El-Erian—an economist and professor at UPenn’s Wharton School of Business, who formerly chaired President Obama’s Global Development Council—noted that this month’s data was “sticky above the Federal Reserve’s target, with the goods component flashing yellow.”
The Consumer Price Index responded to economic challenges, largely due to the Iran conflict, with a surge to 3.3%. This was largely expected due to the continued Iranian conflict and its effects, but that doesn’t make it “any easier for consumers to stomach” as put by Realtor.com Senior Economist Jake Krimmel, who noted that where the report’s inflation numbers really matter are “in consumers’ pocketbooks.”
“Unlike central bankers, everyday Americans do not have the luxury of ‘looking through’ higher gas prices,” he continued. “The more prices rise, especially on highly visible purchases like gasoline, the more households tighten their belts, which has real consequences for spending, confidence and big decisions like buying a home.”
As Krimmel mentioned, the economic challenges have been putting pressure on consumers, as seen in the latest reports.
Consumer sentiment from the University of Michigan hit its lowest point reported since June 2022, seeing a 6.6% fall month-over-month to 49.8 (down 4.6% year-over-year).
Year ahead inflation expectations saw the “largest one-month increase since April 2025,” as stated by Surveys of Consumers Director Joanne Hsu, up from 3.8% in March to 4.7% this month. Hsu specifically noted that “expected business conditions declined for both short and long time horizons, nearly matching year-ago readings when the reciprocal tariff regime was implemented.”
Consumer confidence from The Conference Board, on the other hand, actually observed a slight 0.6-point increase to 92.8 due to the two-week ceasefire with Iran. Labor market and income expectations were up, likely due to the jobs data from earlier in the month. There was also a “mild recovery” in the expectations for consumers when it comes to home purchases.
Despite the positive notes of the report, there were still some pessimistic opinions, with write-in responses concerned about prices, oil and gas, and the war continuing—a “likely signal of consumers’ underlying worries about how the war in the Middle East will impact their pockets.”
Looking ahead, the Leading Economic Index from The Conference Board saw a downturn of 0.6% in its latest report, changing gears from the upturn seen in February and a sign of a “slowdown in the economy over the coming months,” as stated by Justyna Zabinska-La Monica, senior manager of business cycle indicators at The Conference Board.
She noted that in the coming months, “higher oil prices and supply chain tensions will likely place additional upward pressure on inflation and further reduce consumers’ purchasing power.”
