Is now a good time to buy a house?

Here & Now Anytime

NPR

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4.1 • 953 Ratings

🗓️ 25 September 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

The median price of a house sold in the United States in the second quarter of the year was down slightly for the first time in years. But is now a good time to buy? Orphe Divounguy, economist at Zillow, explains the shifting market.

And, in West Virginia, more than 80% of electricity comes from coal power. That's one reason customers have seen their utility bills continue to rise. WVPB reporter Curtis Tate shares more.

Then, President Trump has imposed a $100,000 fee on H-1B visas, sharply increasing costs for employers sponsoring skilled foreign workers. MSNBC's Ali Velshi details what this overhaul means for industries that rely on foreign workers.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for here and now anytime comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink software for technical computing and model-based design.
0:09.2	MathWorks accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at MathWorks.com.
0:18.0	WBUR Podcasts, Boston.
0:22.8	A lot of these markets in Texas, in Florida, throughout the south, are markets where you're seeing more and more listings with a price cut.
0:32.2	Is it a good time to buy a house? Maybe.
0:50.5	It's Thursday, September 25th, and this is here and now anytime from NPR and WBOR.
0:51.5	I'm Chris Bentley.
1:02.8	Today on the show, what impact will a new $100,000 fee on H-1B visas have on companies that depend on highly skilled immigrant labor and on the workers themselves?
1:07.9	Also, electricity bills are going up across the country, but some of the biggest increases
1:13.5	have been in West Virginia. That's in part because ratepayers there are subsidizing coal plants.
1:20.1	It's not serving the ratepayers' best interests. It's in the owner's best interest to try to just
1:25.5	string it along as long as possible and as long as
1:28.4	they're allowed to.
1:30.6	Before we get to that story, though, it's not easy to buy a house.
1:35.3	According to the Federal Reserve, the median price of a home sold in this country is about
1:39.5	$411,000.
1:41.7	That's a lot of money.
1:43.2	But that price is actually the lowest it's been in almost three
1:46.4	years. And the Fed just cut interest rates. So if you can afford it, is it a good time to buy a house?
1:54.2	Zillow senior economist Orfei Dibungi says yes, but it's all relative. And Orfey tells Scott Tong, buying a house is a life choice,
2:03.3	not just an investment. And that's about a lot more than the market. You should only really
2:08.3	buy when it's the right time for you and for your circumstances, but also if you can afford it,
	...

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