As if there wasn’t already enough doom and gloom about the ongoing housing crisis last year, things have gone from bad to worse in 2025.

Home prices broke another record last month: The median price of homes sold in January reached an all-time high of $396,900. That’s a 4.8% increase from the year prior and the 19th consecutive monthly increase.

It’s no wonder that sales of previously owned homes dropped 4.9% last month to 4.08 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors—far lower than the 2.9% decline analysts were projecting.

Overall, there were 1.18 million homes for sale by the end of last month, a 3.5% increase from December and a 17% increase from January 2024. But buyers weren’t biting: The average home for sale spent 41 days on the market, the longest span since January 2020.

So what’s the problem? Persistently sky-high mortgage rates, along with a limited number of listings and stubbornly high prices.

“Mortgage rates have refused to budge for several months despite multiple rounds of short-term interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve,” explained NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun in a statement. “When combined with elevated home prices, housing affordability remains a major challenge.”

While the problem last year was that homeowners weren’t selling because they locked in low mortgage rates, the problem now is that even though more inventory is coming to market, nobody is buying because mortgage rates still haven’t dropped. First-time buyers, who don’t have the capital from selling a previous home, have been hit especially hard by elevated rates.

“Historically, the number of homes for sale is positively correlated with the measure of home buyers,” Zillow Senior Economist Orphe Divounguy wrote. “Mortgage rates remain a key factor, and while rates remain higher than a year ago, they have been easing since mid-January,” he added.

This isn’t your grandmother’s real estate market

We all know that avocado toast isn’t the reason that millennials aren’t buying homes. But avocados or no avocados, younger homebuyers struggle to accrue the funds necessary to make a down payment, which is why the median age of first-time homebuyers climbed from 35 to 38 last year, and the median age of all homebuyers in the US rose to 56.

But there may be light at the end of the tunnel, according to Divounguy. “Moving forward, Zillow forecasting expects home values to increase by just 0.9% this year – a drop from the previous expectation of 2.9%. Despite a weaker-than-expected start of the year, Zillow forecasts 4.11 million existing home sales in 2025.”—LB

🟢 What’s up

• The weight is over: Novo Nordisk rose 5.18% on the news that the FDA has taken weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy off its drug shortage list.
• Celsius Holdings popped 27.77% after the energy drink maker reported record quarterly revenue and acquired rival Alani Nutrition.
• Nissan climbed 5.03% on reports that the struggling Japanese carmaker may reach out to Tesla for an investment—or even an acquisition.
• Alibaba rose 5.72% to a new 52-week high on the news that GameStop CEO Ryan Cohen has increased his stake in the Chinese e-commerce company to $1 billion.
• Big day for micro stocks: MicroAlgo skyrocketed 453.04% thanks to a new quantum computing algorithm the tech holding company developed, and MicroCloud Hologram soared 31.93% after it, too, did some fancy quantum stuff we don’t understand.

What’s down

• Spirit Airlines shareholders just got ghosted: A judge ruled that the struggling airline can restructure its $795 million in debt, but has to cancel existing equity shares. No wonder the stock plummeted 24.46%.
• Rivian Automotive stumbled 4.70% after the EV maker forecast lower vehicle deliveries in 2025.
• Speaking of EV makers, Tesla sank 4.68% after issuing a recall of 380,000 vehicles due to power steering issues.
• Good news for Novo Nordisk (see above) was bad news for competitor Hims & Hers Health, which produces its own lower-cost version of weight-loss drugs. Shares plunged 25.79%.
• Block disappointed with misses on the top and bottom line last quarter, though it did beat forecasts for payment volume. Still, the payment systems provider fell 17.69%.
• Dropbox dropped 16.15% thanks to lower 2025 expectations for the cloud storage provider.

‍⚕️ UnitedHealth Group is feeling under the weather. Shares dropped 7.20% today after the WSJ reported that the Department of Justice is investigating UnitedHealth’s Medicare billing practices. The civil investigation will examine whether the company fabricates diagnoses for Medicare Advantage patients in order to receive more funding. For the record, this investigation is separate from the Justice Department antitrust probe into the insurance giant that began last February.

Crowdstrike has answered the question, how many different federal agencies can be probing a firm at once? Shares declined 6.75% after Bloomberg reported that both the DOJ and the SEC are investigating the cybersecurity giant’s lucrative deal with tech firm Carahsoft. In 2023, Crowdstrike paid Carahsoft $32 million for tech services to provide cybersecurity to the IRS, but the IRS reportedly never actually purchased the products. And those agencies aren’t the only ones poking around: In September, the FBI raided Carahsoft headquarters—never a good sign.

Coinbase and the SEC have worked out on a remix. Shares of Coinbase fell 8.27% after the company announced that the SEC has preliminarily agreed to abandon its two-year case against the crypto trading platform. Back in 2023 during the peak of post-FTX crypto ire, the SEC charged the company with operating an unregistered securities exchange. The decision is still pending commission approval vote, which will likely happen next week, according to the WSJ. While the case being thrown out should be good news to investors, many were likely already expecting the announcement since President Trump has vowed to ease the regulatory pressure on the crypto industry.—LB

• We were shocked, just shocked, to hear that an ETF run by a YouTuber named “Meet Kevin” was shuttered.
• After firing 5% of the company, Meta Platforms executives are getting bigger bonuses, according to regulatory filings.
• ESPN and the MLB have decided to part ways, ending a deal that cost ESPN $550 million per season to broadcast the nation’s most boring sport.
• These 10 defense stocks should be able to endure budget cuts.
• Consumer sentiment fell to 64.7 this month, a 10% decline from the University of Michigan’s January survey, as inflation fears continued to rise.
• Ever wonder how gambling got its start in the US? Blame Massachusetts.
• We were shocked, just shocked, to hear that Hooters is still a business—though probably not for much longer.

Next week starts slow, with no major economic reports on Monday, and just the S&P Case-Shiller home price index on Tuesday and new home sales report on Wednesday. Things pick back up on Thursday with initial jobless claims, pending home sales, a second revision of GDP, and durable goods orders.

Finally, Friday delivers the big one: PCE. The Personal Consumption Expenditures index is the Federal Reserve’s favorite method of measuring inflation, particularly the core version, which cuts out food and energy costs. Expect all eyes to be on this report: It’ll go a long way toward determining the Fed’s next move in March, and also provide a very early look at the effects of President Trump’s economic policies.

One other thing to keep in mind: We’ll be hearing from eight different members of the Federal Reserve next week, which means plenty of opportunities to parse their words for hints of where monetary policy is heading.

As for earnings, they keep on rolling in:

Monday: Domino’s Pizza, Zoom, and Hims & Hers Health

Tuesday: Home Depot, Intuit, Cava, AMC, Caesar’s Entertainment, American Tower, Workday, First Solar, Viking Holdings, Planet Fitness, and Krispy Kreme

Wednesday: Nvidia, Salesforce, Snowflake, eBay, Lowe’s, TJX Companies, AB InBev, AmBev, Advance Auto Parts, Paramount Global, Sweetgreen, Stellantis, and Urban Outfitters

Thursday: Dell, HP, Vistra, Toronto Dominion Bank, Norwegian Cruise Lines, Warner Bros. Discovery, Bath & Body Works, The Mosaic Company, Hormel Foods, CubeSmart, Monster Beverage, and Duolingo (RIP Duo)

Friday: FuboTV, and of course, Sphere Entertainment