With the weather warming up, you may be wondering what’s in store for the spring mortgage market. After all, sunny seasons are correlated with hotter housing markets and higher housing prices. The reason? Most sellers prefer listing their homes outside of the hustle and bustle of the holidays.
While these seasonal trends have existed for decades, they have been less pronounced in recent years. With their high mortgage rates, low housing inventory, and elevated home prices, 2023 and 2024’s spring purchase seasons left a lot to be desired. Fortunately, 2025’s business prospects are already looking brighter.
In this article, we’ll explain why economists and consumers alike are excited about this spring’s mortgage market. We’ll also provide some tips and tricks for navigating the upcoming market so you can maximize your success.
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2025’s Spring Mortgage Market: What to Expect
As we move into the spring housing market, 2025’s shifts in interest rates, inventory, and home prices are shaping the mortgage landscape. Here’s how:
#1 Interest Rates
Mortgage rates have been a major concern for buyers and sellers over the past few years. While they peaked above 8% in 2023, the forecast for 2025 is more promising. Rates are expected to stabilize between 6% and 6.5% throughout the spring season.
This relative stability offers relief to buyers who have previously been spooked out of the market by volatile rates. According to Selma Hepp, Chief Economist at CoreLogic, “With the spring homebuying season upon us, the recent improvements in mortgage rates may help invite homebuyers back into the market.”
While rates are still higher than historical averages, the more predictable environment is encouraging homebuyers to start looking again, especially with the hope of additional decreases later in the year if inflation remains under control.
#2 Real Estate Inventory
After several years of tight inventory, the housing market is finally seeing an uptick in the number of available homes. Realtor.com data shows that active listings are up by nearly 30% compared to the previous year, offering buyers a broader selection and reducing the steep competition that has characterized recent spring markets.
This inventory rebound benefits sellers as well. With more homes to choose from, many feel more confident about listing their properties, knowing they have a better chance of finding a suitable replacement.
#3 Housing Prices
Thanks to stabilizing mortgage rates and increased inventory, 2025’s home prices are predicted to rise at a more moderate pace than in previous years. Nationally, home prices are only expected to increase by around 3% in 2025, a welcomed cooldown from the rapid increases seen in 2023 and 2024.
This shift toward greater affordability will allow more first-time homebuyers to bid on properties without being priced out. Meanwhile, sellers may need to adjust their pricing expectations, as overpricing may cause their homes to sit on the market longer than desired.
Read More: 9 Tips For First-Time-Homebuyers in Today’s Market
How to Navigate Spring 2025’s Market Conditions
Now that you know what to expect from this year’s spring season, you may be wondering how you can prepare your mortgage lending business for what’s to come.
Here are some tips and tricks for navigating the upcoming market to maximize your success:
Help Your Applicants Qualify For The Best Rates
With mortgage rates stabilizing, many aspiring homebuyers are searching for homes. Even so, this year’s mortgage rates are still on the higher side compared to a few years ago. Thus, you can differentiate yourself from your competition by helping your applicants score the very best rates possible.
Here are some strategies to do just that:
- Produce educational content about credit – While your applicants can’t control the federal funds rate, they can improve their creditworthiness before buying a home. They just need to know what steps to take. You can help them optimize their credit by producing a steady stream of credit-related content on your blog and social media channels.
- Provide personalized credit coaching – While your online content can help you attract new applicants, you can win over their loyalty by taking a more personalized approach. You just need to employ some of the credit score improvement tools we offer at Certified Credit. These tools can generate customized suggestions to help your applicants hone their creditworthiness and forecast how they’ll impact their credit scores within specific time frames.
- Employ Rapid Rescore – After your applicants take steps to improve their credit, such as disputing errors with the credit bureaus, it’s important to help them secure the best rate possible when they’re ready to buy. You can do so with ease by re-calculating their credit score using Rapid Rescore.
- Recommend timely refinancing – Mortgage rates may go down in the coming years, so it’s important to remind your applicants that they’re “marrying the house and dating the rate.” In other words, they can always refinance their mortgage when rates fall further. To secure this business, make sure to review their refinancing options with them when the time is right.
By offering this type of support, you can set your applicants up to optimize their mortgage rates and get the most out of their 2025 home purchases. In turn, they’ll be more likely to return to you for their future lending and refinancing needs.
Attract Borrowers Without Trigger Leads
Many lenders have used the credit bureaus’ trigger leads to amplify their lead generation. While trigger leads were designed to bring business to lenders and provide applicants with more options, they’ve had mixed results. Mortgage applicants often find trigger leads to be spammy and annoying, especially if they weren’t warned about them by their lender. Likewise, some lenders resent trigger leads for enticing their borrowers to switch over to their competitors.
Luckily, several bills have been introduced to restrict the use of trigger leads, including the Homebuyers’ Privacy Protection Act (S.3502), Trigger Lead Abatement Act of 2023 (H.R. 2656), and Protecting Consumers from Abusive Mortgage Leads Act (H.R. 4198). Additionally, the Federal Communications Commission announced a ruling on December 13, 2023 that regulates the use of trigger leads.
As proposed trigger lead legislation is discussed, you can proactively prevent trigger leads from taking away your business by:
- Using soft pull credit reports in place of hard pulls during the early stages of your lending process.
- Educating your applicants on how to opt out of trigger leads before they formally apply with you.
- Building positive rapport with new applicants so they’re less likely to consider offers from your competition.
Use Cascade Alerts In Place of Trigger Leads
If you’ve used trigger leads to bolster business in the past, you may want to look into alternative lead generation methods in 2025. This way, you’ll be prepared when proposed trigger lead changes take effect.
One way to obtain customized lead lists of in-the-market applicants is by using Cascade Alerts, an automated credit monitoring tool that mines your existing client database for borrowers who are searching for new mortgage products. You can customize your credit criteria to ensure you’re only shown applicants who are likely to qualify with you again.
Cascade Alerts can notify you within 24 hours of your past and present clients incurring mortgage-related inquiries. This way, you can reach out to them and secure their repeat business before it’s too late. Best of all, there’s no firm offer of credit required.
Take Steps to Combat Rising Credit Report Prices
As we mentioned earlier, soft pull credit reports don’t initiate trigger leads like their hard pull counterparts. Soft pulls also used to be significantly more affordable, making them a savvy cost-cutting tool in the face of 2023’s unprecedented credit reporting price increase.
Unfortunately, Equifax, Experian, TransUnion, and FICO raised their prices on several credit reporting and verification products last year, including soft pull credit reports. As a result, soft pulls are now priced similarly to hard pulls.
The good news? There are still many ways to cut costs in 2025, from employing automated workflow solutions to strategically re-ordering the steps within your loan origination process. If you want customized suggestions, reach out to Certified Credit. Our team can suggest creative cost-cutting solutions and help you implement them effectively.
Slay This Year’s Purchase Season With Certified Credit
In summary, the market is poised to pick up during this year’s spring season, giving mortgage lenders some much-needed business. If you want to prepare your mortgage lending business for a lively spring purchase market, consider partnering with Certified Credit.
As a leading mortgage lending solutions provider, we have a host of lead generation strategies, cost-saving solutions, and workflow optimization tools that can help you make the most of this year’s opportunities. Some of our most popular products and services include our:
- Affordable credit reports
- Automated prequalification
- Automated undisclosed debt monitoring
- Automated verification of income and employment
- Automated credit supplements
- Property and valuation support
- Fraud and risk mitigation
- Flood zone determinations
- Underwriting compliance
- Settlement services
Ready to take advantage of all that this year’s spring mortgage market has to offer? Schedule a credit consultation with the Certified Credit team today.
