Real Estate 2025: The Great Philly Sticker Shock
From how Philly might buck the trend of skyrocketing housing costs to a look at a more affordable version of your dream neighborhood to a drilled-down real estate report on the entire region, here’s what’s happening in real estate this year.
Philly’s real estate trends for 2025 include skyrocketing housing prices. / Photograph by Littlekitty/Shutterstock
For decades, Philadelphia’s relatively low housing prices have been a defining characteristic of our livable, lovable city. These days, though? Not so much. As costs of building and buying climb steadily up, up, up, is an affordable Philly a relic of the past? And what’s a would-be homeowner supposed to do now?
We’ve got the answers to these pressing real estate questions, and more — from how Philly might buck the alarming trend of skyrocketing housing costs to a look at a more affordable version of your dream neighborhood to a drilled-down real estate report on the entire region. Want to know how your zip code is faring these days? Check out the big chart linked below.
Philly Housing Prices Are Through the Roof. But There Are Ways to Fix It
Philadelphia housing prices are rising out of control. / Photo-illustration by Carl Godfrey
Browse the listings on your preferred real estate website these days and here’s what you might find: A three-bedroom in East Passyunk that sold for $280,000 a little more than a decade ago is now $480,000. In Fishtown, the median sale price is well over $400,000. And elsewhere — say, Queen Village or Fairmount or University City — upwards of half a million bucks for a three- or four-bedroom house is increasingly the norm.
It didn’t use to be like this.
For most of this century, Philadelphia enjoyed a reputation as an unusually affordable major city — a place where young families could prosper and older residents could contemplate retirement, where artists could ply their trade and chefs and entrepreneurs could open up shop with some margin for error as they found their footing. The backbone of that promise of opportunity was a housing market that remained reasonable — accessible — even while costs in other big cities escalated into the stratosphere.
In those cities, even covering rent often required a second job or an unwelcome roommate. Buying a home was a privilege restricted to only the most comfortable. Here, on a relatively modest income, not only could you rent a place with enough money left over to cover the essentials (and then some), but houses were priced within reach for many — enough so that three-fifths of the population actually owned their own place. (Imagine: Just one generation ago, half of the homes sold in Philly cost less than $100,000.)
Such relative affordability didn’t just allow more of us to own homes but arguably even shaped our identity as Philadelphians. Here we were, a diverse, down-to-earth community of people who could largely sidestep the rat race required to make it in other major metros.
In the post-pandemic world, however, things have changed. Interest rates and construction costs have soared, while supply has sagged. And our incomes lag well behind those of our peers in other major East Coast cities. Rents in Philly, which once inched higher year by year, have leapt 26 percent since 2020, and home prices have risen even further, according to Kevin Gillen, senior research fellow at Drexel University’s Lindy Institute for Urban Innovation. These days, $100,000 will hardly buy you a teardown. Keep reading …
Can’t Swing the Price of a Home in Your Dream Neighborhood? Consider These Excellent Alternatives
Philadelphia’s oldest residential neighborhood, Queen Village / Photograph by R. Kennedy for Visit Philadelphia
From the city to the burbs to South Jersey, here’s the rundown on your dream neighborhoods — and their more affordable counterparts. Keep reading …
The State of the Market: House Prices Throughout the Region
How have house prices for the Greater Philadelphia area changed this year? / Photograph by Jumping Rocks/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images
The real estate market remained stuck in neutral in 2024, with homeowners sitting on the sidelines when it came to selling and buyers stymied by the lack of homes available. And many of those who did land on a place to buy found coming up with the scratch harder. The reason for all this? Interest rates didn’t come down the way everyone hoped they would at the start of the year.
“2024 was almost a copy of 2023,” says Larry Flick V, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices Fox & Roach Realtors. “We went into the year expecting some interest rate decreases, but inflation started going up in the second half of the year, so the interest rate decrease never happened.”
Here’s our searchable town-by-town price and sales report for the eight-county Greater Philadelphia area. Keep reading …
Published as “The Great Philly Sticker Shock” in the March 2025 issue of Philadelphia magazine.
