Ed-itorial March 2025: The draw of new construction

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

The Numbers:

400,000 more people forecasted to move this year on a seasonally adjusted basis, up every month since December 2024. 

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Last month we saw an even greater increase in mover sentiment. Up from 20 million in December, 20.1 million in January, and then 20.3 million in February – Whengine is now seeing 20.7 individuals forecasted to move in 2025 (SAAR) showing an increase of 400,000 people since just last month. Keep in mind 21.5M people moved in 2024 so even though 2025 is growing it is still forecasted lower than last year. 

Why are more people forecasted to move? And who are they? Let’s assume that the usual factors are contributing to this increase: mortgage slightly lower, spring season, and more housing supply of new and existing homes we all read about. 

We pulled some consumer audience segments from our Whengine (™) database to understand the consumers shopping for homes right now and over the next 90 days: 

Is new construction the draw or the only option?

First time home buyers are 13.5% of the buyers today, and just as we have seen Zillow report, a healthy majority of all homebuyers are looking for new construction instead of resale. 

When we recall that 30% of listings are for new construction, and 18% of homes sold are new construction, and 50% of people searching are looking for new construction, it is undeniable that either: 

• New construction is preferred by home buyers, and/or
• New construction is all there is to buy for many home buyers 

Real Insights

Market Moves

Big news, we’re seeing a major Real Estate Brokerage selling to private equity.

• Stone Point Private Equity has a grand vision of residential real estate.
• Building proptech like Keller Williams tried to do is hard, or even impossible for service businesses like legacy brokerages.
• The legacy brokerages (KW, Anywhere, Redin) are shrinking while the new ones (Compass, Real, Zillow) are expanding. 

IBS Takeaways

We had a big week at IBS. Read more about our big takeaways (hint: real time data is the future but the market is still uncertain), and let us know what you think. 

All in all, more folks are looking to move in March than they were in December, but we’re still tracking behind last year. 

There are a lot of factors that could be weighing into this: time, availability and seasonality. Stay tuned for next month when we dig into what these movers are doing in their lives that are driving their moving decisions.

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Ed Carey

CEO, Audience Town

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