December 2025 Issue

November 2025 saw more homes on the market year-over-year, with active listings up nearly 24%. Month-over-month, inventory declined as expected for this time of year, reflecting the typical seasonal slowdown heading into winter. Closed sales softened as well, falling 10.6% compared to last year and 21.7% month-over-month. The median sales price edged down slightly to $630,000.

Buyer activity remained steady, with property showings holding close to last year’s levels. Nearly 76% of listings were eligible for the NWMLS Down Payment Resource program, offering continued support and opportunities for homebuyers. Overall, the data reflects a market experiencing rising supply, moderate price adjustments, and stable buyer engagement heading into winter.

“Mortgage interest rates leveled off in November, ending the month at 6.23%. Persistent interest rates, combined with the usual seasonal downturn at this time of the year, have caused prices and sales to drop both month-over-month and year-over-year.” said Steven Bourassa, Director of the Washington Center for Real Estate Research at the University of Washington.

Source: NWMLS

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have vastly increased their holdings of mortgage-backed securities in recent months, which may have ripple effects that could help push mortgage rates lower.

Since May, Fannie and Freddie have added more than $55 billion in mortgage principal balances to their combined holdings, an increase of more than 30%.

That’s taken their combined mortgage holdings to a whopping $234 billion, the highest in four years, and analysts tell Bloomberg, which first reported the move, that Fannie and Freddie’s holdings could expand an additional $100 billion next year.

Fannie and Freddie, and the federal regulators that run them, have offered no explanation for the dramatic balance sheet expansion, leaving analysts and industry observers guessing about the motive.

The two companies, which have been under federal control since 2008, may be boosting their mortgage holdings in preparation for a public stock offering, a move that President Donald Trump has teased for months.

On the other hand, or additionally, the move could be aimed at engineering lower mortgage rates, another long-standing goal of the Trump administration.

-Read more Realtor.com

Mortgage rates were just slightly lower to start the new week. This leaves the average lender’s top tier 30yr fixed rate almost dead center in the narrow range that’s been intact since early September.

The absence of any significant movement on Monday is a logical outcome given the absence of any major economic data releases or headlines. But Tuesday could be a different story.

At 8:30am ET, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) will release the first jobs report with data collected after the government shutdown. This report normally would have come out on December 5th, but by the time the government reopened on Nov 13th, BLS had missed much of its normal data collection/processing window.

-Mortgage News Daily