10 US Real Estate Markets To Avoid for Now

You may be surprised by the real estate markets buyers should avoid now, according to data from a new GOBankingRates study.

To determine which 10 U.S. real estate markets should be avoided for now, GOBankingRates looked at the 200 largest Metro Statistical Areas (MSA) and found 10 key factors for each MSA. These include the one-year percent change in home value, for-sale inventory, mean days from pending to close and share of listings with a price cut. A full methodology is available at the end of this article.

Ranked from 10th to first place, consider avoiding these 10 real estate markets.

• Home value in March 2025: $357,890
• Home value in March 2024: $367,047
• 1-year change in home value (%): -2.5%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 3,797
• Mean days to close: 31
• Share of listings with price cuts: 31.8%

• Home value in March 2025: $283,443
• Home value in March 2024: $289,632
• 1-year change in home value (%): -2.1%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 11,329
• Mean days to close: 29
• Share of listings with price cuts: 27.2%

• Home value in March 2025: $407,423
• Home value in March 2024: $417,023
• 1-year change in home value (%): -2.3%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 4,319
• Mean days to close: 33
• Share of listings with price cuts: 30.2%

• Home value in March 2025: $239,771
• Home value in March 2024: $243,624
• 1-year change in home value (%): -1.6%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 5,047
• Mean days to close: 33
• Share of listings with price cuts: 22.6%

• Home value in March 2025: $335,318
• Home value in March 2024: $344,323
• 1-year change in home value (%): -2.6%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 5,257
• Mean days to close: 32
• Share of listings with price cuts: 30.1%

• Home value in March 2025: $384,943
• Home value in March 2024: $396,984
• 1-year change in home value (%): -3%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 15,966
• Mean days to close: 33
• Share of listings with price cuts: 32.7%

• Home value in March 2025: $456,165
• Home value in March 2024: $473,874
• 1-year change in home value (%): -3.7%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 9,233
• Mean days to close: 24
• Share of listings with price cuts: 24.2%

• Home value in March 2025: $384,261
• Home value in March 2024: $411,713
• 1-year change in home value (%): -6.7%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 15,059
• Mean days to close: 32
• Share of listings with price cuts: 29.1%

• Home value in March 2025: $448,889
• Home value in March 2024: $479,343
• 1-year change in home value (%): -6.4%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 7,598
• Mean days to close: 34
• Share of listings with price cuts: 35%

• Home value in March 2025: $708,619
• Home value in March 2024: $749,050
• 1-year change in home value (%): -5.4%
• New for-sale inventory (active unique listings): 4,859
• Mean days to close: 35
• Share of listings with price cuts: 32.2%

Methodology: For this piece, GOBankingRates looked at the 200 largest Metro Statistical Areas (MSA), according to the real estate market and found the following ten factors. For each MSA, GOBankingRates found: (1) 1-year percent change in home value; (2) 1-year change in home value in USD; (3) 2-year percent change in home value; (4) 2-year change in home value in USD; (5) for-sale Inventory; (6) mean days from listing to pending; (7) mean list to sale ratio; (8) mean days from pending to close; (9) share of listings with a price cut; and (10) mean price cut. All data was sourced from Zillow’s March 2025 data. All ten factors were then scored and combined with the highest score being the worst housing markets. In final calculations factors (1), (2), (9), and (10) were weighted 2x and factor (5) was weighted 0.5x. All data was collected and is up to date as of Apr. 22, 2025.