Ed-itorial April 2025: Marketing guesswork is expensive in a slow down

Welcome back to, Ed-itorial: Real Estate, Real Consumer Insights. Here to give you a monthly update on who is moving and why.

This month, we’ll give you the updated annual home mover number and some insights on people moving primary residences, but I’d like to really focus on what is on everyone’s mind: a slowing market. Rates are still high, tariffs are here and there is concern that this market will slow down before it gets better.

So what do home builder sales & marketing teams do about it? Here are my thoughts.

First, the numbers.

The Numbers: 60,000 more people forecasted to move this year on a seasonally adjusted basis, up every month since December 2024, but slowing.

We are seeing a very small uptick in mover sentiment from March to April (staying generally flat), but we are still up from December 2024. Keep in mind 21.5M people moved in 2024 so even though 2025 is growing, it is still forecasted lower than last year.

Regardless of rates, many families are still moving when they have major life events. New kids, sick relatives, natural disasters or damage to their homes: these are all reasons folks are still moving (my house caught on fire and we may need to move).

You may be thinking, but this is always true right? Why does this matter now?

Well, if you have the right technology, these people are now knowable. You can market directly to them–and that is more important than ever as we anticipate a market slowing.

Audience Town can help. If you want to learn more about only the sales and marketing analytics platform for home builders, you can do so here. If not, no pressure.

For now, just know that we know builders are under pressure to sell no matter the market. And I’ll continue to do my best to share insights that empower you to do that.

Home builders are now facing a familiar but frustrating challenge: how to do more with less.

Less budget. Less traffic. Less margin for error.

But, you’re still expected to launch communities, generate leads, and support your sales teams — even as the economic outlook gets cloudier by the week.

That’s why I believe one thing now more than ever:

In a slow market, you can’t afford to make guesses.

You can’t afford to waste ad dollars targeting the wrong buyer.

You can’t afford to price your homes without knowing what’s actually selling nearby.

You can’t afford to make decisions based on data that’s weeks or months out of date.

What you can afford — what you need — is clarity.

Clarity about what’s working, and what’s not. Clarity about how to maximize your ROI and protect those margins. Clarity about who to market and sell to - no matter the market.

There are still 1,700,000 in-market to purchase a newly built home, are you clear who they are? Where they are? And how to communicate with them? You can be.

Real Insights

I was able to sit down with the legend Jeff Shore ahead of our event to talk about why you need to market even smarter in 2025 than ever before. The Ed-itorial readers will already know this.

You can also find me on Market Pulse, by Smart Touch Interactive talking about knowing your customers if podcasts are more your style.

Accelerate 2025

Finally, we had an epic time at Accelerate 2025 talking about all things sales and marketing for home builders. You can read here to get the highlights of the event.

A reminder that there are many opportunities to observe the customer, starting with the awareness of a brand online all the way through considering floor plans and eventually visiting model homes.

The market may be slowing, but you have the agency to do something about it. Find the people that are moving and hyper focus on them. It will pay off.

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Ed Carey

CEO, Audience Town

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