7-28-2025 7:46am

Housing Market Cooler

Housing Market Cooling In MD, New Data Shows

Increasing numbers of buyers are backing out of home sales in Maryland and around the country, an analysis shows.

About 13.2 percent of pending home sales in the Baltimore metro fell through in June, a signal the housing market may be cooling, according to a new report.

Some buyers are backing out during the inspection period because a better home comes along in what is largely a buyer’s market, and some are nervous about making a major purchase in uncertain times, the online real estate company Redfin said.

Overall, 14.9 percent of pending home sales fell through in June, up from 13.9 percent a year earlier. That’s the highest June share since Redfin began keeping records in 2017.

In June 2024, 11.5 percent of Baltimore-area home sales fell through in June, according to the report.

Redfin’s analysis is based on multi-listing service pending-sales data. Typically, the highest shares of cancellations are at the end of the year and in the spring, according to Redfin. The housing market in June is a more reliable measure of buyer sentiment.

Redfin said pending home sales are also falling through at a higher rate than in the past because it’s a buyer’s market, with hundreds of thousands more home sellers than buyers. Buyers have room to be picky, Redfin said, and may back out during the inspection period if a better home comes up for sale, or they discover an issue they don’t want to fix.

Inventory in the Baltimore real estate market in June 2025 was 6,135 units compared to 6,250 in June 2024, according to a report by Long & Foster. This month's total of 6,135 is lower than the previous month's total supply of available inventory of 7,089, a decrease of 13%.

A year ago, the median sale price for Baltimore metro homes was $415,000, Long & Foster said. In June 2024, the median sale price was $425,000, an increase of 2% or $10,000 compared to the previous year. The current median sold price is 2% higher than in May.

This month there were 3,348 homes newly listed for sale in Baltimore metro compared to 3,965 in June 2024, a decrease of 16%, Long & Foster's report said. There were 3,300 current contracts pending sale this June compared to 3,051 a year ago. The number of current contracts is 8% higher than in June 2024.

Finances are the other major reason buyers are backing out of deals. U.S. home-sale prices are at record highs, and while monthly mortgage payments have fallen a bit, they’re still near their all-time high. Some would-be buyers are canceling purchases when the reality of their monthly payment sets in, Redfin said.

Additionally, Redfin agents report that some buyers are canceling because they’re nervous about economic uncertainty surrounding things like tariffs, inflation, and the possibility of a recession.
“Buyers have leverage,” said Crystal Zschirnt, a Redfin Premier agent in Dallas. “Some buyers are canceling deals because another home pops up in the same price range that they like better, or because they discover a flaw and get nervous it’ll cost too much to fix. I’ve also heard of some buyers backing out because they’re hoping home prices or mortgage rates are going to plummet soon, even though that’s unlikely.”

Redfin previously forecast a 1 percent year-over-year decline in home prices nationwide by the end of 2025. Mortgage rates are expected to remain essentially unchanged in the 6.8 percent range.
In some cases, sellers are working hard to keep transactions from falling apart.

“Sellers are willing to make deals because in today’s buyer’s market, they don’t want to lose out on a sale once they have a buyer under contract,” said Van Welborn, a Redfin Premier agent in Phoenix. “A few years ago, when the market was more competitive, sellers were able to tell buyers to move on rather than pay for repairs found during the inspection period. Now, sellers are doing whatever they can to close the deal. I have one buyer who discovered a septic issue on an ultra-luxury home and was able to talk the seller into reducing the price by $1 million.”

Overall, the highest cancellation rates are in the Sun Belt. In Jacksonville, Florida, more than one in five (21.4 percent) home-purchase agreements were canceled in June, the highest share of 44 major U.S. metros Redfin analyzed. It’s followed by Las Vegas (19.7 percent) and Atlanta (19.6 percent).

Others with high cancellation rates were San Antonio, Texas; Tampa, Florida; Orlando, Florida, Riverside, California; Phoenix; Fort Worth, Texas; and Miami.

New construction in Florida and Texas is leading to high cancellation rates because there’s a greater inventory of houses for buyers to consider, according to Redfin. Also, the real-estate company said, some areas are backing out because of high insurance quotes related to the increasing frequency of natural disasters.

On the other end of the spectrum, just 5.4% of home-purchase agreements in Nassau County, New York, were canceled in June, the lowest share of the metros Redfin analyzed. It’s followed by Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (6.8 percent), and Milwaukee (8.2 percent).

The biggest year-over-year increases in contract cancellations are in California: In Anaheim, 15.2 percent of deals were canceled, up from 12.6 percent, and in Los Angeles, 17.1 percent were canceled, up from 14.7 percent.

The share of home-purchase cancellations fell year over year in June in just seven of the metros in this analysis, all by about 1 percentage point or less. The biggest decline was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida (16.5 percent, down from 17.7 percent), followed by Denver (16.2 percent, down from 17.2 percent), and Orlando, Florida (19 percent, down from 19.9 percent).