Good morning, NREB readers.

As always, we're here to keep real estate professionals informed while cutting out the fluff. Let's get right into it.

The typical American homeowner now stays in the same house for 12 years before selling.

Twenty years ago, the typical tenure was just 6.5 years.

And in some markets, 12 years looks short.

In Los Angeles, the typical homeowner now hangs onto a property for 20 years.

San Jose: 18.7 years.

Cleveland: 17.8 years.

At the other end, Louisville homeowners stay about 8.3 years, while Las Vegas sits at 8.8 years.

Same country.

Very different housing turnover.

The larger trend, though, is hard to miss:

Americans hold onto their homes for nearly twice as long as they did in the early 2000s.

That changes more than how often one homeowner moves.

It changes the flow of inventory through the entire housing market.

Homeowner tenure reached a national peak of 13.4 years in 2020.

Then it declined for several years.

That made sense.

Pandemic-era mortgage rates fell to record lows.

Remote work gave households more geographic flexibility.

Home prices surged.

Millions of people suddenly had both a financial incentive and a lifestyle reason to move.

By 2024, median tenure had fallen to 11.8 years.

Then the direction changed.

In 2025, it ticked back up to 12 years, the longest tenure since 2022.

Redfin found that homeowner tenure increased in 28 of the 41 major metros it analyzed from 2024 to 2025.

The housing market slowed.

Financing became expensive.

And for many owners, staying in the house they already had once again became easier than replacing it.

This is the basic financial problem behind long tenure.

Imagine an owner who purchased years ago.

Their home may have appreciated substantially.

Their mortgage balance may be much lower.

Their interest rate may be far below what is available on a new loan.

Their property-tax situation may also benefit from years of ownership depending on the state.

Then they look at moving.

The replacement home costs more.

The new mortgage costs more.

Insurance may cost more.

Taxes may rise.

Closing and moving costs enter the picture.

The homeowner may be wealthier because of the equity in the existing house and still decide that moving does not improve their life enough to justify the new monthly expense.

That creates a strange housing condition:

the owner can afford to stay much more easily than they can afford to move.

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When people discuss housing shortages, attention usually goes toward construction.

How many homes did builders start?

How many units were completed?

How much new inventory entered the market?

But housing supply also depends on turnover.

A house can physically exist and still be unavailable to buyers for decades.

Suppose a neighborhood contains 1,000 homes.

If owners move frequently, a meaningful portion of those homes returns to market every few years.

If owners stay 15 or 20 years, the neighborhood can feel inventory-starved even though the number of houses has not changed at all.

That is one reason long homeowner tenure matters particularly in established areas where adding substantial new construction is difficult.

The housing is there.

It just does not come up for sale very often.

Long tenure does not affect every property type equally.

Older homeowners often occupy homes purchased decades ago at prices that bear little resemblance to today's values.

Some of those properties sit in neighborhoods that once served as attainable entry points for younger households.

When owners remain in place longer, those homes do not recycle into the market as frequently.

Redfin has previously found that empty-nest Baby Boomers own a disproportionately large share of America's larger homes.

That does not mean older owners should move.

A homeowner has every right to stay in a property that works for them.

But there is a market consequence.

A home occupied for another five years is five more years that property is unavailable to the buyer hoping to enter that neighborhood.

At scale, millions of individual stay-versus-move decisions affect inventory.

Los Angeles sits at the top of Redfin's latest list with a 20-year median tenure.

Part of the explanation is housing cost.

Selling a long-held property in Los Angeles may produce a large amount of equity.

But replacing that property can still be extraordinarily expensive.

California also has an unusual property-tax structure.

Under Proposition 13, assessed values generally cannot rise by more than 2% annually until a qualifying change in ownership or new construction occurs.

That means a homeowner who has occupied the same property for decades may have an assessed value far below today's market value.

Selling can therefore involve more than giving up the house and perhaps a low mortgage.

It can mean leaving behind a favorable tax position as well.

California's Proposition 19 now allows qualifying homeowners age 55 and older, among others, to transfer a base-year value to a replacement primary residence under certain conditions.

But the broader point remains:

Housing decisions are affected by the financial structure attached to the existing home, not merely the home's market value.

It would be easy to assume long tenure is just a California phenomenon.

Then Cleveland appears near the top of the list at 17.8 years.

Providence is at 17.4.

Philadelphia is at 16.

Pittsburgh is at 15.7.

Those are very different housing markets.

That tells us homeowner tenure is driven by more than one variable.

Population age matters.

Local mobility matters.

Economic conditions matter.

Housing affordability matters.

Whether people need to move for work matters.

How much new construction exists matters.

And local culture can matter.

There is no single reason an owner stays.

The result is still the same from an inventory standpoint:

fewer properties turn over.

At 8.8 years, Las Vegas has one of the shortest homeowner tenures among the major metros Redfin analyzed.

Louisville is even shorter at 8.3.

Charlotte and Orlando are around 9.2.

Raleigh is around 9.3.

Redfin notes that relatively affordable markets often have shorter tenure because moving from one house to another can be financially easier.

Some markets also have more transient populations, employment-related moves, second homes, or investor activity.

The comparison is useful because it shows how differently an agent can experience "normal" turnover.

An agent in Los Angeles can build a business around a neighborhood where a homeowner selling after 15 years is relatively ordinary.

An agent in Las Vegas may encounter substantially more frequent ownership changes.

That affects prospecting, listing inventory, property history, and even the kinds of conversations agents have with homeowners.

Long tenure has another consequence that is easy to overlook.

The owner is not the only thing that changes over 12 years.

The house does too.

Think back 12 years from 2026.

A homeowner who bought in 2014 may have lived through:

multiple roof and HVAC service cycles,

changing insurance markets,

new technology,

new appliances,

renovations,

repairs,

neighborhood development,

HOA changes,

family changes,

and a substantial shift in the value of the property.

Now stretch that to 20 years.

Or 30.

A long-held listing can carry a much deeper history than a home that last changed hands three years ago.

Some owners maintain meticulous records and update continuously.

Others simply live in the property and fix things when necessary.

Neither tells you automatically whether the house is in good or bad condition.

It does mean the passage of time becomes increasingly relevant to the next transaction.

This week's Monday article looked at Boomers controlling 55% of recent seller activity and 42% of buyer activity.

Long tenure helps explain the financial position many older owners occupy.

Someone who bought 20 years ago has had two decades for:

home values to appreciate,

principal to be paid down,

income to change,

and housing costs to diverge from today's purchase costs.

That can create substantial equity.

But equity itself does not create a listing.

In fact, the opposite can happen.

A homeowner may look at a property purchased for $250,000 now worth $600,000 and feel financially secure.

Then they look at what $600,000 buys today and decide:

That is one of the central tensions of the current market.

Housing wealth can make an owner financially stronger while making the relative economics of leaving less attractive.

There is some encouraging news.

Homeowner tenure is below its 2020 peak.

Inventory has also improved substantially from the worst pandemic shortages in many markets.

So the situation is not frozen.

People are moving.

Homes are coming to market.

New construction continues adding supply.

But a national median of 12 years is still dramatically different from 6.5 years in 2005.

Returning to healthier inventory does not necessarily require homeowners to start moving every six years again.

It does mean turnover deserves a place beside construction when agents think about housing supply.

A market can build more homes and still feel tight if existing owners rarely sell.

For agents, one useful distinction is whether an owner is staying because the property still fits or because moving feels financially unattractive.

Those are not the same homeowner.

One may genuinely have no reason to sell.

Another may want:

less maintenance,

a different location,

more space,

less space,

a newer property,

single-story living,

proximity to family,

or a different lifestyle.

The friction is simply that the current home comes with financial advantages that are difficult to recreate.

That is increasingly part of the modern seller decision.

The question is not always:

Sometimes it is:

That is a much harder question.

There is one final stereotype worth avoiding.

A long-held homeowner—especially an older one—is often immediately treated as a future downsizer.

Sometimes that is exactly what happens.

Sometimes it isn't.

A seller's next move can be driven by family, location, lifestyle, health, retirement, amenities, climate, taxes, housing condition, or dozens of other factors.

Tenure tells you how long someone stayed.

It does not tell you where they want to go next.

That distinction becomes important when a growing share of sellers have spent a decade or more in the home they are leaving.

Their lives may have changed enormously during that period.

The next purchase may reflect needs that did not exist when they bought the current house.

We'll look more closely at that on Friday.

The simplest takeaway is also the biggest one.

In 2005, the typical homeowner sold after about 6.5 years.

Today, it is 12.

In Los Angeles, it is 20.

That means millions of homes cycle through the market far less frequently than they once did.

For buyers, that can mean fewer opportunities in established neighborhoods.

For sellers, it means the decision to move may involve giving up years of accumulated financial advantages.

For agents, it means the owner of a potential listing may have a much longer relationship with the property than agents were accustomed to 20 years ago.

And for the housing market as a whole, it means supply is not simply about how many structures America has built.

It is also about how often the structures already standing become available to someone else.

The home may exist.

The demand may exist.

But until the owner decides it is finally worth moving, the inventory does not.

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Redfin defines 2025 homeowner tenure as the number of years between a home's most recent sale and December 1, 2025, using historical county records. The figures describe median tenure among homes in the analysis rather than how long every current homeowner has occupied their property. California property-tax rules are summarized at a high level; eligibility for Proposition 19 base-year-value transfers depends on individual circumstances and applicable state requirements.