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I’m Ed Carey, Founder/CEO of Audience Town, the only sales & marketing analytics platform for Real Estate. Welcome to my first issue of the Ed-itorial: Real Estate, Real Consumer Insights.
Our first newsletter offers the only annual forecast of people moving in 2025 based on our ‘Whengine’ database, which is the largest dataset of home movers in the country.
In 2025, we know we are expecting a presidential administration that is favorable for real estate. According to BuilderOnline, “the new administration is expected to drive down regulatory costs and new housing starts are expected to be positive in the 2025 calendar year.”
There will be more people getting off the sidelines to move, and rates sliding down below 7%. Ok but: are people actually going to move in 2025?
Audience Town data is based on 280M people and 121M total households (all households in the US). Our estimates are based on current behavior and modeled predictions which produce consumer intent in real-time. Right now, we are forecasting that:
As we look at 2025, we forecast 20 million people will move (buy, sell, rent a new primary residence), based on our AudienceTown consumer data. This is consistent with the trend of fewer people moving year-over-year, down 6% next year.
Unless…consumers get off the sidelines and there is availability of new and existing housing supply and rates come down. All of these are expected to happen, so we may see the inverse of 2024 whereby more people move over time than we forecast right now.
Also expected is that while fewer people will move compared to 2024, more of them will purchase newly built homes, which already account for 30% of all listings and a growing percentage of home sales.
How did we do in 2024? We forecasted 26 million people would move in 2024, however only 21.5 million moved into, bought, sold, or rented a new primary residence. We were close, but many economic and political factors made 2024 a record-low year for home sales and moving. It doesn’t mean our data was misleading, but it does mean that people wanted to move in early 2024 per our Whengine data, but ultimately did not as the year unfolded.
There is a discrepancy between the Audience Town consumer forecast of 20M and higher 2025 home sales forecasts because many movers are single-household renters, not 2-3 person household buyers. “Bright MLS forecasts existing-home sales will increase 7.5% year-over-year and inventory levels will increase 12.5% compared to 2024. Buyers will perceive rates above 6% as “the new normal,” and many who have been on the sideline will engage in the housing market in 2025,” according to BuilderOnline.
I plan to update you quarterly with more real-time home mover forecasts as these conditions and mover sentiments change.
Sales Velocity will pick up.
As John McManus, the founder of The Builder's Daily wrote:
Zillow is predicting that more homes will be sold in 2025 than 2024 (4.5 million vs. 4 million). They are calling it a ‘calmer and cozier’ year, showing a less stressful year for buyers with the mortgage rates peaking in 2024. But for homebuilders, we are still seeing steady growth in home values and lots of buyers in the market.
Lead quality and marketing performance towards these 20M people:
Because fewer people are forecasted to move, lead quality and marketing performance can be the differentiator over the next three years to get ahead of the competition and the consumer curve. 2026 is predicated to be a much more active housing market than 2025. If I had a crystal ball, I would probably see more like 25M-30M people moving in 2026, which would return us to pre-pandemic levels.
The key will be to make sure all your marketing dollars are spent on specific and measured campaigns on the precise 20M people, working with new tools and technology to make sure every dollar you spend is getting in front of these home movers. This is especially true for new home builders and production builders who stand to grow their share of the market.
If people want to move, but the conditions aren’t ‘perfect’, this is the time for your marketing and sales to hit hard with the benefits of buying in your market.
It should be a big year—really looking forward to going on the ride with all of you.
Ed Carey
CEO, Audience Town
