RealEstateNews 4.21.25

Weekly News Roundup

• Lux Real Estate Pauses
• Multifamily Benefits from Tariffs 
• Private Home Listings Kiboshed 

Lux Real Estate Pauses 

Market gyrations and tariffs, both current and pending, are casting a shadow on high-end property as buyers pull out of deals or tap the brakes amid global economic uncertainty. In the U.S., the richest 10% have 36.3% of their total assets in stocks and mutual funds, according to a new report from Realtor.com, which found real-estate comprised 18.7% of their total assets. Until recently, luxury sales were on an upswing, and agents said high Wall Street bonuses indicated a strong year ahead. 

Overall, the median sale price for U.S. luxury homes, defined as the top 5% of sales, rose 8.8% during the second quarter of 2024, more than twice as fast as nonluxury homes, according to the most recent data available from Redfin. After markets lost $6.6 trillion in an epic two-day rout on April 3 and 4, fallout in the high-end real-estate market has been swift—even as many investors recouped losses during a market surge on April 9 following President Trump’s announcement of a 90-day pause on certain tariffs. 

“We’ve been on a wild ride the last two weeks. Buyers are nervous about everything,” said real-estate agent Aaron Kirman of Christie’s International Real Estate Southern California, who had a roughly $65 million deal fall through in Bel-Air. He said some buyers are swooping in to buy real estate as a hedge against the stock market, but others are pausing amid uncertainty. “When news cycles get too negative, it just really makes people second-guess their decisions,” he said. Source: Wall Street Journal

Multifamily Benefits from Tariffs  

Multifamily owners are slogging through a historic glut of new supply. The biggest wave of apartment construction in 40 years has pressured rent prices, forcing landlords to offer months of free rent and other incentives to fill their units. Now, with the cost of imported materials poised to soar and construction labor getting harder to find, this crush of overbuilding suddenly looks like a lucky break for the multifamily industry. 

The whipsawing tariff announcements, rising economic uncertainty and stubbornly high mortgage rates are also a threat to the broader housing market. That is likely to keep many people renting longer, further buoying demand for apartments and single-family rentals. Rent growth was already primed for a rebound. The new-construction pipeline delivered more than 1.1 million units in 2023 and 2024, according to property-data firm Yardi Matrix, the most since the mid-1980s. 

Much of it was built in popular Sunbelt markets, cooling rents in even fast-growing cities like Austin, Texas, and Nashville, Tenn. A lot less new apartment construction is under way after that two-year crush of supply, which was launched when borrowing costs and material prices were lower. So, additional building costs related to tariffs will have a lighter impact. Landlords say that the new supply should be mostly drained by year-end, setting the stage for rents to rise nationwide. Source: Wall Street Journal

Private Home Listings Kiboshed   

On April 10, the massive real estate company Zillow announced it would not accept any listings that have been previously offered for sale in a selective manner, a direct response to a step from an industry group that many observers felt limited choice in the marketplace. In March, as USA TODAY previously reported, the National Association of Realtors offered sellers a new option: delaying disseminating a listing beyond the multiple listing service databases once it is posted there.

In early April, Zillow flexed its muscle. “We believe a listing available online anywhere consumers can see it must be online everywhere listings are displayed,” the company said in a statement. Zillow acknowledges that various brokerages have their own web-based marketplaces, both internal and external-facing, which may defy easy categorization, but says the spirit of its policy holds: as soon as a listing is shared with a consumer – whether on a brokerage’s own website, via a lawn sign or social media, or in any other method – it must be shared with the local multiple listing service within one business day or forfeit the opportunity to be shared on Zillow, ever.

Zillow’s step matters: the company is the 800-pound gorilla in residential real estate. According to a February investor presentation, 80% of consumers come directly to Zillow. Among users of listings apps, Zillow commands 64% of all traffic, more than four times its closest competitor, Realtor.com. Source: USA Today