This year has been a doozy for the real estate industry — from crimes and misdemeanors to mergers and acquisitions, clients weren’t the only ones making major moves this year.
Every week in my column, The Download, I choose one of the week’s biggest stories, based on Inman’s readership, and provide additional context as well as some related stories on the topic.
Now, as we get to the end of the year, I’m looking back at the most-read Download columns of 2025 and giving you an update on how they continued to play out — and what we might see on these subjects in 2026.
1. Gary Keller’s bleak 2025 housing market forecast
At February’s Keller Williams’ Family Reunion, Gary Keller forecast significant market headwinds in 2025. While affordability remained a challenge, prices stabilized and inventory improved, making the latter part of the year a bit brighter than Keller’s initial assessment.
Looking forward to next year, Windermere Real Estate economist Jeff Tucker was cautiously optimistic in his 2026 forecast: “To sum it all up, I’m expecting a mostly stable year, with some gradual, modest improvement on the most important housing market metrics: inventory, sales and mortgage rates.”
2. How the Trump agenda is (already) impacting housing
In an exclusive series for Inman, Marian McPherson outlined five Trump policy proposals floated prior to the start of his second term and how they might impact the already stagnant housing market. She looked at Trump’s vow to deport millions of immigrants, overall economic policy proposals, the proposed elimination of climate change and bias initiatives, the drive to privatize Fannie and Freddie, and antitrust pressures on the real estate industry.
Despite all of the talk and all of the backlash, most of these proposals have been more about political signaling than direct, meaningful impact on the housing industry. Most of the proposals for immigration enforcement, tariffs and fair housing rollbacks have resulted in added uncertainty for builders, lenders, local governments, real estate professionals and consumers. At the same time, high mortgage rates, low inventory and affordability remain only minimally changed.
3. Cracks in NAR’s control begin to show
Back in April, we started to see a pattern of MLSs and portals pushing back on National Association of Realtors policies, ignoring the trade group’s rules in favor of implementing their own policies. These include the return of commingled listings on Zillow after a four-year hiatus and increasing frustration and debate around private listings policies.
We continued to see pushback in the fall, with MLSs seeking to provide access to non-Realtors and referral fee transparency implemented at the state level after its failure to catch hold at the national level.
4. Has agent bad behavior gotten out of control?
From Dateline-worthy true crime to financial shenanigans of all types, agent safety and agent crime were both in the spotlight in 2025. Unfortunately, that is one trend that has continued through the end of the year.
From the ex-MLS CEO charged with grand theft, leaving the East Polk Association of Realtors “all but broke,” to text scams targeting real estate pros and the daily drama of the Brian Walshe murder trial, crime and punishment were, unfortunately, an all-too-frequent part of the real estate landscape.
5. What’s the fallout from NAR’s Clear Cooperation switch?
After years of back and forth around NAR’s Clear Cooperation Policy, the trade group announced that it would keep the policy in place, requiring properties to be listed on an MLS within one day of marketing while adding a new category for “delayed marketing exempt listings.” This teed up a policy change by Zillow just days later, saying it would ban listings that don’t follow CCP guidelines.
While actual implementation of Zillow’s proposed policy change has been complicated by legal wrangling almost from the beginning, it may finally be moving forward, at least in Chicago, where MRED warned that Zillow had contacted subscribers telling them to expect “disruptions” in the new year.
