Forced property dispositions are increasingly appearing as a measurable feature of the 2025 housing cycle, as institutional sellers have, over the past six months, lowered pricing expectations at distressed auctions, with Auction.com reporting declines in credit bid-to-value and reserve-to-value ratios amid rising retail inventory and persistently high mortgage rates that have constrained auction-buyer demand. Auction.com accounts for close to half of properties brought to foreclosure auction nationwide.
Forced-property sales were described as rising 82.5% in 2025, and the auction channel is being monitored as an early indicator of slowing home-price appreciation and tightening liquidity.
Across the broader resale market, turnover remained subdued. Existing home sales declined 0.2% in 2025 to 4.06 million, the weakest annual level since 1995, while single-family closings rose 0.5% to 3.69 million yet remained 32% below the 2021 peak; condo and co-op sales fell 4.6% to 373,000, the lowest since 2009. This represented the lowest annual sales total since 1995 and extended four consecutive years of annual declines through 2025.
March 2025 data showed existing sales down 2.4% year over year to 4.02 million SAAR, whereas new single-family sales increased 6.0% to 724,000 SAAR, underscoring a split between builder-controlled supply and rate-constrained resale demand even as December 2025 sales rose 1.4% year over year to 4.35 million SAAR.
Inventory conditions have shifted in ways that bear directly on auction clearing prices and bid depth. Active listings increased 29% in October 2024 to 953,814 homes, with notable metro growth in Miami (57%), Atlanta (47%), and Denver (59%).
New homes for sale reached 481,000 units in January 2025, the highest since 2007, including 385,000 speculative units, the most since 2008. Concurrently, seriously delinquent mortgage rates increased after a three-year decline, and foreign buyer volume fell 21.2% to $42.0 billion, with non-resident activity down 35% year over year, reducing a marginal source of demand. The refinancing environment has added further pressure, with nearly $960 billion in commercial real estate maturities coming due in 2025 and $1.8 trillion in 2026, creating a rolling test of asset quality and sponsor strength.
Pricing signals remained mixed, tightening execution tolerances for distressed dispositions. The median new-home price fell 7.52% year over year to $403,600 in March 2025, while NAR reported the median existing-home price up 2.75% to $403,700 and the national median single-family price at $409,500 in December 2025, down 1.3% month to month.
With permits down 32% from 2020 to 2025 and starts projected to fall 2.7% to 1.33 million units, auction outcomes hinge on affordability and resale supply.
