Hudson Valley Q1 2025 Market Update
The housing market in New York City’s northern and western suburbs continued its path toward recovery in the first quarter of 2025. Sales activity is gradually improving, prices once again reached record highs, and inventory levels are steadily building. While there are some cautionary signs, such as softer pending sales, the overall trend points to a market working its way back to balance. Here are three key takeaways from the first-quarter housing market in Rockland County, Orange County, Bergen County, and Westchester County.
Top 3 Takeaways
1. Sales Continue to Climb
Following nearly three years of declines, sales showed modest growth to start the year. Transaction levels increased across most regions.
However, pending sales—a leading indicator for upcoming closings—softened this quarter. While we anticipate ongoing recovery, these pending numbers suggest a slower second quarter.
2. Prices Set New Records
Home prices continued their upward march, hitting new highs across the region.
Despite higher mortgage rates and economic uncertainty, strong buyer demand and low inventory are sustaining price growth. Over the rolling year, prices have climbed between 6% and 10%, depending on the region, further reinforcing the market’s resilience.
3. Inventory Keeps Building
Inventory levels continued to expand in Q1, offering relief after years of constrained supply.
With inventory climbing steadily over the past year, we’re seeing early signs of a shift toward a more balanced market. While total supply still falls short of the six-month benchmark for neutral conditions, this growth is encouraging for both buyers and sellers. If listings continue to rise, we expect more transactional activity and an eventual stabilization of price growth.
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1. Sales Continue to Climb
Regional sales continued to recover after three years of steady declines that began in 2022 when interest rates popped and the post COVID market faded. Quarter after quarter, we saw sales fall compared to the prior year, to the point that transactions dropped down to the level that we last saw in the aftermath of the 2008-09 financial crisis. However, sales stopped falling in the last half of the year, and seem to be slowly recovering. That said, pending sales were disappointing, and might indicate that transactions might fall in the second quarter.
Rockland County Closed Sales (Q1 2025)
Orange County Closed Sales (Q1 2025)
Pending sales were down across the board. Pendings are generally a leading indicator of closings in the next quarter, so we will be watching to see if the spring market fails to launch.
Bergen County Closed Sales (Q1 2025)
Westchester County Closed Sales (Q1 2025)
2. Prices set new records
Prices continued to rise, again hitting all-time highs throughout the region. For the quarter, average prices rose 6% to 11% across the four counties, with Bergen County showing the highest appreciation. We’ve now seen prices go up in virtually every quarter since 2019, and are now up between 60-75% from the beginning of the COVID market. We admit that the continued strength in prices has been surprising, especially given how interest rates have risen over the past three years, but buyer demand has remained strong and inventory is still low from a historical perspective – leading to too many buyers chasing too few homes.
3. Inventory keeps building
The lack of inventory market that has drove much of that price appreciation over the past few years is continuing to show signs of easing up. Last year, we consistently saw some “green shoots” of inventory starting to come back into the market. That trend continued in the first quarter, with listings coming up and inventory starting to move closer to a balanced market.
Listings themselves were up, continuing last year’s trend. For the first quarter, listings were up throughout all four counties. And we’ve now seen steady listing increases for a full year, with listings up about 4% in Westchester and the Hudson Valley and 6% in Northern New Jersey. Homeowners are starting to see the historic heights in pricing and are being tempted back into the market. Those increases in listings are starting to drive inventory up. For more than few years, we’ve been dealing with ridiculously low inventory, in many cases with just 2.0 months of homes available for sale. Now, we’re starting to see some consistent signs of supply rising. Inventory is still low, but it’s moving in the right direction to loosen up a market that has been constipated for over two years.
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