Positive Outlook in 2025 for Oklahoma Real Estate

OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) — 2024 brought us both good and bad news for the national real estate market. Supply was up, but homes took a lot longer to sell than usual. So, what does 2025 have in store specifically for Oklahoma?

Economists expect home prices in the OKC metro to grow by more than 6% and home sales to grow by more than 8% in 2025.

However, Oklahoma has had the second largest decline in homeownership since 2019.

Economists KFOR spoke with say the reasoning behind that, and why they expect more people to come to Oklahoma in the new year.

“Oklahoma City, on the other hand, is going to vastly outperform our national forecast,” economist Ralph McLaughlin said. The metro is expected to see a population boom heading into the new year led by the housing market. “We’re expecting home sales in Oklahoma City to rise by about 8.5% and home prices to rise by about 6.5%,” McLaughlin said.

As for the reasons why, he gives a few, including the President-Elect’s projected positive impact on the oil and gas industry. He adds that the Oklahoma economy has been strong for years. “GDP in Oklahoma has been jostling amongst the top three with Texas and Alaska being the other two GDP juggernauts,” McLaughlin said.

Mortgage rates on the other hand look to remain around the same. “We don’t think they’re going to come down as much as most folks were expecting, you know, even in the middle of this this year, but we do expect them to come down to around 6.2% to 6.3%,” McLaughlin said. He says that’s because income is predicted to rise across the nation.

While things seem positive, another study shows Oklahoma City as having the second largest decline in homeownership since 2019. McLaughlin says that it could be for two reasons. “One, it can go down because there are homeowners that are selling their house and converting to becoming renters,” McLaughlin said. He says the other is kids moving out of their parents’ house and becoming renters too.

Neither is necessarily bad for the housing market, but he says a combination of both is affecting it. “It’s more likely that’s what’s going on in Oklahoma City, then, you know, say, a collapse in homeownership like we saw during the Great Recession,” McLaughlin said.

“There is a pro-development, pro-business community in Oklahoma City that is supportive of development means,” McLaughlin said. “There is likely a lot more options in Oklahoma City than there are in, say, other similarly sized metro areas on the expensive coasts.”

McLaughlin adds that it is a good thing there is an increasing number of renters, even if homeownership is decreasing, because when the renters are ready to own, the metro will be able to handle the demand.