US housing prices highest ever

SALT LAKE CITY — The cost of a median-priced home in the United States just hit a new high.

Americans paid $440,600 for the typical existing home in June, according to the National Association of Realtors, 1.8% more than a year ago and the 36th straight month that prices have risen.

 

“The median home price has reached an all-time high,” the association’s chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said, adding that job growth and wage gains are helping to offset the impact on affordability.

But he said there are red flags for the market.

Yun warned that “progress on long-term housing affordability could be hampered if inventory growth continues to stall. Without consistent gains in inventory, home prices can accelerate. It is critical to introduce more supply to the market to widen the opportunity for homeownership.”

Congress has passed a landmark housing bill intended to boost the nation’s supply of homes for sale, including by streamlining regulations for homebuilders and limiting purchases by corporate investors.

“Supply is the key problem here,” Jeanna Kenney, assistant professor of economics, finance and real estate at Villanova University, recently told NPR. “Anything you can do to make supply easier is going to be helpful in the long term.”

Earlier this year, Realtor.com reported that in 2025, the U.S. housing supply gap had widened to an estimated 4.03 million homes, due to new construction not keeping pace with the number of households being formed nationwide.

The “21st Century Road to Housing Act” became law after midnight Friday without President Donald Trump’s signature. Trump announced Friday he would not sign the bill to protest the Senate’s failure to pass the SAVE America Act.

That legislation, sponsored by Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, calls for sweeping changes to how Americans cast their ballots, including restrictions on voting by mail and new identification requirements, and does not have the support of a number of Republicans.

The housing bill, however, had bipartisan backing. Although there’s no new federal funding for housing in the bill, there are provisions aimed at improving affordability. Those include cutting the costs of manufactured homes by eliminating a requirement they be built on a chassis.

Selling prices vary by region with prices highest in the West, according to the latest numbers comparing this June with the same month in 2025 that were released Thursday by the National Association of Realtors.

Northeast

• $564,800 median price, up 3.9%

Midwest

• $346,600 median price, up 2.7%

South

• $377,700: Median price, up 0.9%

West

• $633,600: Median price, up 0.9%

In Utah, the median sales price for a home sold in May, the most current data, was $528,000, a 3.5% increase over that same month in 2025. A median home price is defined as the number where half sold for more and half sold for less, not accounting for seller concessions.

Price isn’t the only factor for homebuyers, of course. Mortgage rates, which had dipped below 6% for the first time since 2022 earlier this year, shot up after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran.

Rates for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage reached a high not seen since last summer, hitting 6.75% on the Mortgage News Daily index in May. Friday, the news site posted a 6.64% rate, down slightly from the day before.

What Yun called “mild fluctuations in mortgage rates” have been helping to drive the ups and downs in the housing market this year, showing “how sensitive home buyers are to affordability conditions.”