Between an inventory shortage and high costs, residential real estate has been a seller’s market across recent memory. However, the latest market survey from Bright MLS (which covers the mid-Atlantic United States) suggests that 2025 might finally tip the scales over to a buyer’s market.
Authored by Bright MLS Chief Economist Dr. Lisa Sturtevant, this report is based on surveys of Bright MLS-associated real estate agents working with both buyers and sellers. There is more inventory and thus less competition—meaning a better environment to try buying a home.
It is “too soon to say whether or how far the pendulum will shift to buyers,” the Bright MLS report stated. Overall consumer confidence in the economy is also slipping due to macroeconomic concerns, such as the uncertain implementation of tariffs that would be posed to drive up prices. RISMedia’s latest Broker Confidence Index found that 45% of surveyed brokers reported that buyers or sellers in their region were altering decisions based on tariffs, inflation, the stock market or other economic factors.
Still, on-the-ground reports from Bright MLS surveyed agents show a positive direction for homebuyers well into 2025. Recent cost hurdles for homebuyers have dropped, encouraging more buyers to enter the market. Those that do, according to surveyed agents, are having an easier journey to close.
A principal factor in the market shift is mortgage rates. Rates dropped from 7%-plus to hovering around 6.5% over the first months of 2025. “Even a modest drop in rates made a difference to homebuyers,” the report wrote. Only 42% of surveyed agents reported a client pausing a home search due to high mortgage rates during Q1 2025, compared to around 60% during 2024. More than 80% of agents also reported their clients were “easily” able to qualify for a mortgage.
As mortgage rates have trickled down, housing inventory has climbed. As buyers have noticed more options, others beside Bright MLS have noticed the resulting uptick in buyer interest. iBuyer Offerpad stated a goal at its Q1 2025 earnings call to ramp up acquisitions of homes, explicitly citing signs of increased homebuyer interest.
The greater options buyers have can be observed not only by increasing listings, but in the process of home-buying. Forty percent of buyers who closed on a home in Q1 2025 had been looking for less than a month—compared to about 20% in 2024—and 50% of buyers only had to make an offer on one home before closing, rather than making multiple offers on multiple different houses. The report described buyers making multiple offers as a sign of previous years’ “dearth of inventory” and the resulting competitive environment for homebuyers.
Not all types of homebuyers face the same experience, though. According to the survey, 43% of first-time homebuyers only had to make one offer on a home. The report cites as evidence that first-time buyers face greater challenges than repeat buyers.
The Bright MLS Buyer Activity Index, which measures how active agents believe buyers will be in the next three months, came in at an optimistic 60.1. (A measure higher than 50 is considered optimistic.) However, despite the positive progress toward a buyer’s market, agents are actually more cautious than a year ago. In April 2024, the Buyer Activity Index was at a “record high” of 68.1. The corresponding Seller Activity Index came in at 47.2, a noticeable increase compared to April 2024’s 35.4.
Homebuyers do not hold all the cards in a home-buying transaction, though. Forty-five percent of surveyed buyers said they had to make some compromise, with commonly occurring compromises being in location, quality or price of the home. Sellers were also less likely to offer closing cost assistance or credit for repairs in 2025 than they were in 2024, the Bright survey found.
The report wrote that buyers continuing to make compromises is a holdover from the previous seller’s market: “Because the market has been so competitive for so long, even when buyers have more listings to choose from, they know that they still need to be flexible.”
For the full Bright MLS report, click here.
