Home prices soared in all 50 major metros in December

A Redfin report found that Cleveland saw the biggest jump in December, as the budget-friendly market heats up.

1/22/25 11:01AM

The US housing-affordability crisis has long vexed its national leaders — so much so that it landed on President Trump’s long list of Day 1 executive orders, aiming to “lower the cost of housing and expand housing supply.”

But, for now, house prices are still going up. Per Redfin’s latest report, the median US home price jumped 6.3% year over year in December, with prices rising in all 50 of the most populous metros, the first time that’s happened since May 2022’s pandemic home-buying boom.

What’s most remarkable about the continued rise in house prices is that it’s happening despite the fact that we’re no longer in the low-interest-rate era that dominated much of the 2012-2022 decade — the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate in the US shot past 7% again last week, a far cry from the ~3% level in 2021. Meanwhile, inventories simply can’t keep up with demand, new housing construction continues to fall, and many home sellers are willing to hold out for the price they want, having seen their neighbors sell for thousands over the asking price during the pandemic, per Redfin.

Interestingly, the biggest price surges aren’t happening in New York or LA, but rather in the traditionally budget-friendly Midwest: Cleveland (+15%) and Milwaukee (+14.5%) led the pack, while Chicago (+11.1%) and Warren (+10.3%) ranked fifth and sixth, respectively.

Metros with the smallest price jumps were in Florida and Texas — states that also happened to build the most new homes in the country in 2023, per the US Census Bureau, to meet a flurry of pandemic-era newcomers. Additionally, the average cost of home insurance in Florida is now ~2.5x the national average, which might be tempering demand in the state.

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Teen summer hiring in the US might hit its lowest level since federal tracking began, new report finds.

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Ahead of Mother’s Day, Google searches for “same day flower delivery” have ticked up a little earlier this year

If you’ve already made plans for a Mother’s Day gift in advance of this Sunday, congratulations. But if alarm bells are suddenly ringing, consider this a gentle reminder that, like a sizable share of the US population this time of year often does, you can still scrape together some last-minute flowers for the woman who carried you for nine months.

Data from Google Trends reveals that searches for “same day flower delivery” spike in the US in May every year, when Mother’s Day takes place. As we noted last February, the same query also gains traction around Valentine’s Day.

This year, however, it appears that searches for last-minute flowers have remained elevated in the last two months after the usual peak in February — with the search interest this April actually exceeding that seen around Cupid’s Day.

Honestly, we’re not sure why searches are spiking a little early. One explanation might be that Passover and Easter have overlapped at the start of April, and Americans wanted to celebrate with some flowers. Maybe it’s a host of Claude bots that are now running errands for AI-obsessed execs — or perhaps Americans are just impulse-buying some seasonal spring blooms after an unusually warm March, without a particular occasion.