US Adds 115K Jobs in April as Q1 GDP Rises 2%

The outbreak of direct conflict between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other has delivered an immediate shock to American homebuyers. Existing-home sales in April rose just 0.2 percent from March to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors. Economists had expected a gain of more than 3 percent. Sales were flat compared with a year earlier, even as mortgage rates climbed sharply once fighting began.

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate, which had finished March in the high 5 percent range, moved higher as markets priced in greater uncertainty around energy supplies and inflation. Lawrence Yun, the NAR’s chief economist, noted that affordability had improved modestly from a year ago because rates are still below their recent peaks and wage growth has outpaced price increases. Yet that improvement proved too slight to lift transaction volumes.

Inventory rose 5.8 percent from March but remains only 1.4 percent above last April’s level, leaving a 4.4-month supply. A balanced market typically requires about six months. Multiple-offer situations persist in many areas even as average days on the market lengthened to 32 from 29 a year earlier. The median sale price reached $417,700, the highest April figure on record.

The housing shortfall predates the current conflict. Years of underbuilding, local zoning restrictions, and high construction costs have kept supply chronically tight. Higher borrowing costs now compound that structural problem, pricing out marginal buyers and slowing turnover. First-time purchasers, who rely heavily on financing, have been especially affected.

The same geopolitical event is producing parallel effects abroad. Closure of the Strait of Hormuz has threatened oil and liquefied natural gas shipments from the Persian Gulf, pushing European natural-gas prices up roughly 40 percent since the start of hostilities. Several European governments and clean-energy executives are citing the episode as further evidence that accelerating wind, solar, and storage deployment can reduce exposure to supply shocks and price spikes.

In the United States, corporate balance sheets have so far shown resilience. FactSet data indicate that the blended net profit margin for S&P 500 companies reached 13.2 percent in the fourth quarter of 2025, the highest level since tracking began in 2009. Technology and industrial sectors led the gains. That strength has supported equity markets even as consumer confidence remains low and energy markets fluctuate.

The contrast highlights a familiar pattern: asset owners and large firms can often absorb or even benefit from volatility, while households seeking to purchase durable goods such as homes face immediate financing pressure. Policy responses will likely center on two fronts. One involves measures to expand housing supply through zoning reform and permitting changes, steps that address the underlying shortage rather than cyclical rate movements. The second concerns energy security, where faster deployment of domestic clean-energy resources can blunt the transmission of overseas disruptions to consumer prices.

Both issues predate the current war yet have been thrown into sharper relief by it. Without progress on supply constraints in housing and diversification in energy, similar external shocks will continue to produce outsized effects on American families’ ability to buy homes and on European governments’ exposure to price spikes.