Buying a Home in 2025: How Tariffs and Labor Shortages Could Impact the Market

WSJ Your Money Briefing

The Wall Street Journal

News, Business News

3.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 13 April 2025

⏱️ 18 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Many prospective homebuyers may find themselves locked out of the market again this year. What key signs should buyers watch for in the coming months? In the final episode of our special series, “Buying a Home in 2025: Navigating the Crunch,” host Ariana Aspuru takes a closer look at the ongoing challenges facing the housing market, with Wall Street Journal reporters Veronica Dagher and Nicole Friedman, and Redfin’s chief economist, Daryl Fairweather. We'll explore the challenges facing builders, from President Trump’s tariffs and the Federal Reserve’s plans for interest rates to the impact of potential deportation-induced labor shortages. We’ll break down how these factors will affect the construction of new homes and could shape the housing landscape in the future. Catch up on previous episodes here. Sign up for the WSJ's free Markets A.M. newsletter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	In an age of unprecedented disruption and opportunity,
0:03.0	success depends on what you do with your data and how fast you do it.
0:07.0	This is the era of AI. This is the era of KX.
0:11.0	KX, survival of the fastest.
0:14.0	Starter homes are great for a lot of people, but as we're in our late 20s, we figured maybe just jump into a home that we could be in for a long time.
0:25.2	And tell me how this search has gone the past few months. How are you feeling? Defeated, to say the least.
0:31.2	That's Madison Stefano, and she's been looking for her first home for about four months. If you aren't owning a home, usually that means you're renting.
0:39.1	And we figured, hey, before we renew our lease, we're going to get a house.
0:42.0	And it didn't work out that way.
0:43.2	So we're currently month to month paying a lot more than we had budgeted for rent, which is difficult.
0:48.6	Madison and her husband typically view between two to five homes per week in Connecticut.
0:53.4	And they've started to forego things that they originally wanted, like a good school district.
0:59.0	Going month to month on our lease speeds things up because unfortunately now that we're paying
1:03.2	more and rent, we have less to put away for buying a home.
1:06.7	I think if we don't have anything in the next two to three months, we would really have to
1:10.3	consider potentially going back to a year lease and trying it another time.
1:15.6	They, like many buyers, have weighed their options in the housing market.
1:20.3	Ideally, they don't want to wait, but they might have to.
1:26.7	Here's your money briefing for Sunday, April 13th.
1:30.0	I'm Mariana Aspuru for the Wall Street Journal, and this is the third and final episode of
1:34.9	our series, Buying a Home in 2025, navigating The Crunch.
1:39.5	In episode one, we looked at the state of the current real estate market.
	...

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