National Versus Local

by | Apr 30, 2025 | Real Estate

National Versus Local-"Real Estate Market Comparison"


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National Versus Local

Welcome to the Real Estate Espresso Podcast. Your morning shot of what’s new in the world of real estate investing. I’m your host, Victor Menasce. On today’s show, we’re taking a look at Hyperlocal vs National. Today we’re comparing Boston, Charlotte, and Phoenix, three cities at almost polar opposite ends of the country.

But first, at my company, YStreet Capital, we’re building a lot of projects all over North America. A lot of investors got into trouble over the past few years because of the irrational exuberance and a tendency only to look at the upside and ignore the downside. At YStreet Capital, we believe that underwriting is a skill that goes way beyond just having a good spreadsheet. It consists of a discipline of crafting market assumptions that result in a safe project.

I see too many investors tweaking and manipulating their spreadsheets in order to get numbers at work. That’s a dangerous practice and it requires a strong discipline in underwriting to avoid that temptation. Our Consulting Division provides underwriting services to other investors and developers all over North America. If you find yourself tweaking numbers in your spreadsheets, you may want to consider engaging our consulting group to get an institutional quality underwriting package completed for your projects.

Please reach out to me at victorm at ystreetcapital.com and our team of experts would be happy to help you with your underwriting. The link to contact me will be in the show notes. On todays show we’re taking another look at hyperlocal versus macro. Earlier this week, we looked at a couple markets 📝(of) in Florida. Today, we’re comparing Boston, Charlotte, and Phoenix, three cities at almost polar opposite ends of the country.

With so many folks reporting on different aspects of the economy, they tend to report on market averages. The truth is almost nothing exists at the average. Local variances overwhelmingly dominate the averages.

So let’s start with the national picture. This is what you’re going to see reported in the mainstream media. Based on available information for the US, the residential real estate market in April this year put estimates for the active inventory somewhere between 900,000 and 1.1 million homes. One source indicated 892,000 active listings at the end of March, while another reported 1.1 million listings about a 12% increase year over year, Zillow reported 1,075,000 homes.

At the end of March, the number of month’s supply of inventory is around 4 months according to both National Association of Realtors, and 4.2 months according to TD Economics. New listings were also up year over year, by 13%, according to one report in mid-April this year. If we compare March of 2025 with the year before, we’re up 19.8% in terms of total housing inventory. That’s up from a 3.1 months supply in March of 2024, so definitely there is an increase in inventory.

Home prices holding fairly steady, around $403,700 is the median home price across the United States. It is a year over year increase but it’s pretty slow compared to previous years. Now let’s look at some specific markets.

Phoenix ARA saw a significant increase in active listings. One source says there are 29,297 homes available for sale in April of 2025. That’s about 3.1 months of inventory. That compares with just around 20,000 homes for sale that’s at least a 37% increase, maybe a bit more compared with the same period last year. Boston, Massachusetts has seen a steady increase throughout the entire year.

Back in April of 2024, there was a 1.1 month’s supply which was just under 1,200 listings. In March of 2025, that number is closer to 4,400 homes. That’s a significant increase, almost a tripling in inventory compared with a year earlier. But still, things in the Boston market are moving fairly quickly. Prices are holding between $700,000 and $800,000 per home, and the strong jobs picture in the Boston area is keeping the demand high for housing.

Let’s look at Charlotte NC. At the end of March, there were about 4,000 homes for sale. There’s a couple of different listings depending on what you look. Anywhere from 3,100 to 4,500, but I’m gonna go with 4,500 is the higher number. If we compare that to a year earlier, there were close to 6,000 homes on the market in April of 2024. So we’ve actually seen a fairly substantial decrease in homes for sale between last year and this year.

While construction of new homes has slowed nationally, there is still a bunch of new product coming into the market in the Charlotte market. I know several builders in Charlotte that are continuing to build hundreds of units and in the Charlotte market.

So just looking at three markets seemingly at random, you will see vastly different outcomes for those three markets, and none of them are anywhere close to the national average. You may have investors asking you questions about what’s happening based on national average numbers that they read in the media. This is a time for you to get well educated on what’s happening locally so that you can have an educated conversation with your investors. As you think about that, have an awesome rest of your day. Go make some great things happen and we’ll talk to you again tomorrow.

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