ATTOM, a leading curator of land, property data, and real estate analytics, has officially published the results from its first quarter 2025 U.S. Home Sales Report.
Going by the available details, this particular report treads up a long distance to showcase that homeowners, on average, made a 50.2 percent profit selling single-family homes and condos during the first quarter of 2025. The stated figure marks a downturn of 3.2 percentage points from the previous quarter and down 4.8 percentage points from the first quarter of 2024.
“Sellers may not be enjoying quite the same windfall they were a few years ago but by historical standards profits are strong, both in terms of margins and raw dollar value,” said Rob Barber, CEO for ATTOM. “The first quarter also tends to be the weakest of the year, so don’t be surprised to see profits regain ground during the summer months. The dip in profits has affected homes across the price spectrum and country, but several communities in Florida and California saw the biggest drop offs.”
Talk about the given lowdown on a slightly deeper level, if pitted against the fourth quarter of 2024, typical profit margins were found to go down across 99 (77 percent) of the 128 metropolitan statistical areas that had at least 1,000 home sales during the first quarter of 2025. As compared to the same time last year, typical profit margins fell in 106 (83 percent) of the 128 metro areas.
Markedly enough, the biggest year-over-year decreases in typical profit margins came in Punta Gorda, FL (down from 106.3 percent to 69.2 percent); Ocala, FL (down from 99.9 percent to 66.7 percent); Deltona, FL (down from 81.6 percent to 54 percent); Bakersfield, CA (down from 81.1 percent to 58.9 percent); and Spartanburg, SC (down from 49.4 percent to 29.6 percent).
On the other hand, largest year-over-year increases in typical profit margins for the given period were recorded across Toledo, OH (up from 27.8 percent to 44.7 percent); Birmingham, AL (up from 24.9 percent to 35.1 percent); Canton, OH (up from 43.8 percent to 53.1 percent); Syracuse, NY (up from 56.8 percent to 62.3 percent); and Youngstown, OH (up from 64.7 percent to 70 percent).
As for metro areas with populations over 1 million, the biggest year-over-year shrinkage in typical profit margins were observed across San Jose, CA (down from 105 percent to 88.8 percent); Tampa, FL (down from 73.9 percent to 59.1 percent); Fresno, CA (down from 75 percent to 60.8 percent); San Francisco, CA (down from 78.3 to 64.3 percent); and Jacksonville, FL (down from 59.6 percent to 47.4 percent).
On the flipside, the biggest year-over-year improvement in typical sales profit margins came around areas like Chicago, IL (up from 41.9 percent to 45.2 percent); Buffalo, NY (up from 79.1 percent to 82.2 percent); Cleveland, OH (up from 52.9 percent to 55.4 percent); and Virginia Beach, VA (up from 37.8 percent to 39.8 percent).
Even with dwindling profit margins, though, home sellers showed a pattern of generating comparatively high returns on their investments. We get to say so because, from the surveyed 128 metro areas, 77 (60 percent) had typical sales profit margins at or above 50 percent.
A more area-specific lowdown would reveal that, among metro areas with at least 1 million residents, the highest typical profit margins were generated across San Jose, CA (88.8 percent); Buffalo, NY (82.2 percent); Seattle, WA (75.3 percent); Providence, RI (74.1 percent); and Boston, MA (73.9 percent).
Against that, the lowest typical profit margins were in New Orleans, LA (18.1 percent); San Antonio, TX (24.5 percent); Dallas, TX (29.7 percent); Austin, TX (32.7 percent); and Houston, TX (35 percent).
Among other things, we ought to mention how average amount of time owners hold onto a home before selling it saw another increase since 2006. You see, for homes sold during the first quarter of 2025, the average amount of time between purchase and sale was 8.12 years, which would be the same amount of time as in the fourth quarter of 2024. However, it would also be almost six months longer than homes sold in the first quarter of 2024.
