Grass, in the case of homeownership, may not always be greener on the other side, a recent survey of new homeowners shows.
Just over one-third (37%) of homebuyers in 2025 said they did not regret their purchase, up from 31% in 2023, according to listing platform Realtor.com’s latest Consumer Attitudes and Usage Study.
The frenzied process of pandemic-era homebuying — which saw waived inspections and bidding wars become the norm and not the exception in many markets — has yielded to a multiyear housing slowdown.
As low affordability continues to limit homebuyer demand, those able to buy are finding more options on the market and more breathing room in the buying process.
“They don’t necessarily have to, or they don’t feel like they have to put in an offer the first time they see a house,” says Laura Eddy, vice president of research and insight at Realtor.com, in a statement accompanying the survey findings.
This leaves homebuyers with “more time to think through implications,” Eddy says, underscoring homebuyers’ slightly lower instances of purchase remorse in 2025.
Feelings of having overpaid for their new house — one of the most common complaints among homebuyers, according to Realtor.com — declined from appearing in 15% of survey responses in 2023 to just 8% this year.
At the same time, the report suggests homebuyers in this year’s slower-paced housing market are “financially prepared and understand what to expect — reducing the likelihood of post-purchase regret.”
Repeat and first-time homebuyers in 2025 are bringing larger average downpayments to the closing table than they have in decades, at around 23% and 10% of purchase price, respectively, this year.
The most common post-purchase complaint was more upfront home maintenance needs than expected, followed by unanticipated spending on typical household items.
According to the listings platform Redfin, the national U.S. housing market has been a buyer’s market since May 2024, a trend that will likely continue to shift in favor of buyers as house prices soften and inventory stays elevated relative to pandemic-era lows.
Home sellers outnumbered buyers in the market by 36.8% in October, Redfin reported recently, as the number of active homebuyers declined by 1.7% from September to October to an estimated 1.44 million, the lowest since Redfin began tracking the metric.
