ATTOM Data’s Year End 2024 Home Sales Report has found that homesellers made a $122,500 profit on typical sales in 2024, a return on investment of 53.8%. Although both of these numbers soared to near record levels, the profit margin for median-priced home sales nationwide receded from 56.9% to 53.8%.
This decline in profit margin marked the second annual decrease, a pattern that hasn’t been seen since the aftermath of the great recession of the late 2000’s.
In spite of the fact that gross profit on median single-family homes and condo sales rose by about $2,000 from 2023, the margins within those gross profits took a relatively steep cut: 8% below a peak from the year 2022, according to the report.
“(T)he U.S. housing market mostly rebounded nicely in 2024,” said Rob Barber, ATTOM CEO. “Prices went back up at a healthy clip and homeowners continued to make some of the best profits on sales in the past 25 years. The renewed shine, however, didn’t come without a bit of tarnish as margins took another turn for the worse. Amid the generally good news, that’s something worth following closely in 2025.”
ATTOM’s data also showed that the median national home price rose by 5% to a record $350,000 marker.
ATTOM measured return on investment for 127 metropolitan statistical areas with a population north of 200,000 and sufficient sales data, finding that the Northeast, South and Western regions of the country had nearly all of the highest ROI metros, with 29 out of 30. San Jose, California, led the way with a 105.8% return on investment. This was followed by Knoxville, Tennessee (94.3%), Ocala, Florida (87.1%), Seattle, Washington (85.6%) and Scranton, Pennsylvania (85%).
The Midwest and Northeast were home to metros with the largest increases in profit margin from 2023 to 2024, with Syracuse and Rochester, New York, both seeing seller margins rise by double digits (13.3% and 10.4%, respectively).
Rochester has been identified as a “hot” housing market by industry analysts in recent years, and has also rated highly for its affordability—at least compared to much of the rest of the country.
On the other side of the profitability coin was the Southern region of the U.S., which contained the 10 largest decreases on investment. This was led by Fayetteville, Arkansas, which experienced a decline in ROI from 71.9% to 51.3% on a yearly basis. This was followed by Ocala, Florida (105.7% to 87.1%), Sarasota, Florida (80.6% to 64.6%), Chattanooga, Tennessee (80.6% to 65.9%) and Crestview-Fort Walton Beach, Florida (60.1% to 45.9%).
ATTOM found that profit margins on typical home sales declined from 2023 to 2024 in 73% of the 127 metros with sufficient data to analyze for investment returns, or 93 of such metros expressed as a raw number.
According to Barber, “home prices are stretching household budgets more and more, and mortgage rates have been going back up in recent months even as other forces put more upward pressure on prices. So, there are certainly major factors that could propel the market up or settle it back down. Either will have a significant effect on seller returns.”
Read the full report here.
