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Buyers wield more power in housing market, especially in Sun Belt, with contract cancellations on the rise

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A surging wave of home-sale cancellations is tilting the balance in the housing market from sellers to buyers. In June 2025, nearly 15% of pending home sales fell through, per Redfin, a record high for June data stretching back to 2017. The contract cancellations are concentrated in the Sun Belt states like Florida and Texas that have powered housing since the pandemic housing boom. The consequences of contract cancellations reach beyond individual buyers and sellers to builders, agents, and the broader economy.

Just over 57,000 home-purchase agreements were canceled in June, Redfin found, which is nearly 15% of homes that went under contract that month. This cancellation rate is up from 13.9% the previous June. The trend is evident nationwide, but especially pronounced in Sun Belt cities including Jacksonville, Florida, Las Vegas, and Atlanta, which are recording cancellation rates near or above 20%. High interest rates, high insurance costs, and high property taxes have also affected cancellation rates, according to Cotality (formerly CoreLogic).

A buyers’ market or something else?

Some factors favoring buyers have improved. Inventory is up—Zillow finds 1.36 million homes on the market in June, the most since late 2019—while demand has softened. With more choices and less competition, buyers can afford to be more selective, with Zillow finding the share of listings with a price cut hitting 26.6% in June, the highest monthly mark in Zillow records dating back through 2018, and near the all-time high of 27% from September 2022. 

Sellers have also started yanking properties from the market that aren’t selling at a price they think is worth it; delistings skyrocketing 47% year-over-year in June, according to Realtor.com.

“What we’re seeing nationally is a market that’s gradually rebalancing, with buyers gaining leverage and sellers facing a tradeoff: Adjust to the market and sell for less, or hold out and risk sitting indefinitely,” Realtor.com Senior Economist Jake Krimmel previously told Fortune. “Many sellers still aren’t pricing to sell.”

Another difference from pandemic buying conditions is fewer buyers are waiving inspection and appraisal contingencies. Now they’re being used as opportunities to renegotiate or walk away if (and when) problems arise.

It’s not a full-blown buyers’ market, though, as anxiety over the broader economy has many would-be homeowners thinking twice. Several factors are contributing to financial jitters. Mortgage rates remain stubbornly high at around 6.8%, keeping monthly payments near historic peaks, the median national sale price is still at record highs, and buyer confidence is challenged by macro uncertainty related to tariffs, inflation, and fears of a potential recession. In fact, a recent LegalShield survey shows 70% of homeowners and prospective buyers worry a potential recession and tariffs could disrupt their housing plans.

Many discover the monthly payments, once fully calculated, are simply too much to bear and back out at the last minute. Others are hoping for prices—or rates—to drop soon and choose to wait it out. For the first time in years, realtors report buyers are negotiating harder. Sellers, for their part, are now more willing to make concessions, from price reductions to agreeing to costly repairs. This shifting balance is giving buyers more room to shop around and less incentive to stick with a deal if it’s anything less than perfect.

Headwinds in Florida and Texas

Florida and Texas, often the leaders in home sales during the last five years, are now leading in rates of cancellation. Several local factors are at play, from the influx of newly built homes increasing available inventory to soaring insurance premiums, especially in disaster-prone regions. These are a drag on the housing market generally and are playing into cancellations as some potential buyers are abandoning deals after receiving quotes.

Across the Sun Belt, inventory is tilting the playing field, with single-family home inventory up 32% year-over-year in some metros. In certain cities, the months’ supply of homes (inventory-to-sales ratio) has ballooned to nine to 12 months, well above the six-month threshold for a balanced market.

Florida had the largest number of homes for sale in the U.S. as of June 2025. Active listings have spiked, with Central Florida posting its highest home inventory levels in 15 years. This has pushed median home prices down about 2%–3% compared to 2024, and more dramatically in some markets, such as Sarasota. The national housing market may not be in a buyers’ market per se, but that is the vibe in Florida, as many sellers make price cuts or offer concessions, competing for a smaller buyer pool. In Texas, active listings are hitting record highs in some markets, such as Houston, while the median price is also seeing a slight decline, similar to Florida.

As of June 2025, both the Florida and Texas housing markets are facing headwinds, marked by rising inventory, increased price reductions, longer selling timelines, and shifting leverage toward buyers. This softening trend is pronounced throughout the Sun Belt, reflecting a transition away from the frenzied pandemic-era market.

The road ahead

Florida, Texas, and the broader Sun Belt markets are all contending with oversupply, softer pricing, and a shift toward buyer-friendly conditions. After years of strong gains, 2025 has brought a market reset, fueled by cooling migration, higher rates, and the lingering effects of pandemic-era overbuilding. In these regions, buyers now have more choice and negotiating power, while sellers face increasing competition and subdued price growth.

“Homes are sitting on the market nearly three weeks longer than last year,” Realtor.com’s Krimmel said. “That’s a sign of sellers still anchored to pandemic-era prices even though the market is telling them otherwise.”

Market watchers don’t expect a quick reversal. Prices are forecast to dip slightly by the end of 2025, but mortgage rates are predicted to hold nearly steady. For now, home-sale cancellations are likely to remain elevated, requiring all market participants to adapt to an era of higher uncertainty—and, for savvy buyers, greater opportunity.

For this story, Fortune used generative AI to help with an initial draft. An editor verified the accuracy of the information before publishing. 



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New contract shows Palantir working on tech platform for another federal agency that works with ICE

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December 9, 2025

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Palantir, the artificial intelligence and data analytics company, has quietly started working on a tech platform for a federal immigration agency that has referred dozens of individuals to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for potential enforcement since September.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services agency—which handles services including citizenship applications, family immigration, adoptions, and work permits for non-citizens—started the contract with Palantir at the end of October, and is paying the data analytics company to implement “Phase 0” of a “vetting of wedding-based schemes,” or “VOWS” platform, according to the federal contract, which was posted to the U.S. government website and reviewed by Fortune.

The contract is small—less than $100,000—and details of what exactly the new platform entails are thin. The contract itself offers few details, apart from the general description of the platform (“vetting of wedding-based schemes”) and an estimate that the completion of the contract would be Dec. 9.Palantir declined to comment on the contract or nature of the work, and USCIS did not respond to requests for comment for this story.

But the contract is notable, nonetheless, as it marks the beginning of a new relationship between USCIS and Palantir, which has had longstanding contracts with ICE, another agency of the Department of Homeland Security, since at least 2011. The description of the contract suggests that the “VOWS” platform may very well be focused on marriage fraud and related to USCIS’ recent stated effort to drill down on duplicity in applications for marriage and family-based petitions, employment authorizations, and parole-related requests.

USCIS has been outspoken about its recent collaboration with ICE. Over nine days in September, USCIS announced that it worked with ICE and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to conduct what it called “Operation Twin Shield” in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area, where immigration officials investigated potential cases of fraud in immigration benefit applications the agency had received. The agency reported that its officers referred 42 cases to ICE over the period. In a statement published to the USCIS website shortly after the operation, USCIS director Joseph Edlow said his agency was “declaring an all-out war on immigration fraud” and that it would “relentlessly pursue everyone involved in undermining the integrity of our immigration system and laws.” 

“Under President Trump, we will leave no stone unturned,” he said.

Earlier this year, USCIS rolled out updates to its policy requirements for marriage-based green cards, which have included more details of relationship evidence and stricter interview requirements.

While Palantir has always been a controversial company—and one that tends to lean into that reputation no less—the new contract with USCIS is likely to lead to more public scrutiny. Backlash over Palantir’s contracts with ICE have intensified this year amid the Trump Administration’s crackdown on immigration and aggressive tactics used by ICE to detain immigrants that have gone viral on social media. Not to mention, Palantir inked a $30 million contract with ICE earlier this year to pilot a system that will track individuals who have elected to self-deport and help ICE with targeting and enforcement prioritization. There has been pushback from current and former employees of the company alike over contracts the company has with ICE and Israel.

In a recent interview at the New York Times DealBook Summit, Karp was asked on stage about Palantir’s work with ICE and later what Karp thought, from a moral standpoint, about families getting separated by ICE. “Of course I don’t like that, right? No one likes that. No American. This is the fairest, least bigoted, most open-minded culture in the world,” Karp said. But he said he cared about two issues politically: immigration and “re-establishing the deterrent capacity of America without being a colonialist neocon view. On those two issues, this president has performed.”



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CoreWeave CEO: Despite see-sawing stock, IPO was ‘incredibly successful’ amid challenges of tariff timing

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December 9, 2025

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CoreWeave has been rocked by dizzying stock swings—with its stock currently trading 52% below its post-IPO high—and a frequent target of market commentators, but CEO Michael Intrator says the company’s move to the public markets has been “incredibly successful. And he takes the public’s mixed reaction in stride, given the novelty of CoreWeave’s “neocloud” business which competes with established cloud providers like Amazon AWS and Google Cloud.

“When you introduce new models, introduce a new way of doing business, disrupt what has been a static environment, it’s going to take some people some time,” Intrator said Tuesday at Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conference in San Francisco. But, he added, more people are beginning to understand the CoreWeave’s business model.

“We came out into one of the most challenging environments,” Intrator said of CoreWeave’s March IPO, which occurred very close to President Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs in April. “In spite of the incredible headwinds, we’re able to launch a successful IPO.”

CoreWeave, which priced its IPO at $40 per share, has experienced frequent severe up-and-down price swings in the eight months since its public market debut. At its closing price of $90.66 on Tuesday, the stock remains well above its IPO price.

As Fortune reported last month, CoreWeave’s rapid rise has been fueled by an aggressive, debt-heavy strategy to stand up data centers at unprecedented speed for AI customers. And for now, the bet is still paying off. In its third-quarter results released in November, the company said its revenue backlog nearly doubled in a single quarter—to $55.6 billion from $30 billion—reflecting long-term commitments from marquee clients including Meta, OpenAI, and French AI startup Poolside. Both earnings and revenue came in ahead of Wall Street expectations.

But the numbers were not all celebratory. CoreWeave disclosed a further increase in the debt it has taken on to finance its expansion, and it revised its full-year revenue outlook downward—suggesting that, even with historic demand in the pipeline.

With media headlines calling CoreWeave a “ticking time bomb,” with critics calling out insider stock sales, circular financing accusations and an overreliance on Nvidia, Intrator was asked whether he felt CoreWeave was misunderstood.

“Look, we built a company that is challenging one of the most stable businesses that exist—that cloud business, these three massive players,” he said, referring to AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud.  I feel like it’s incumbent on CoreWeave to introduce a new business model on how the cloud is going to be built and run. And that’s what we’re doing.” 

He repeatedly framed CoreWeave not as a GPU reseller or traditional data-center operator but as a company purpose-built from scratch to deliver high-performance, parallelized computing for AI workloads. That focus, he said, means designing proprietary software that orchestrates GPUs, building and colocating its own infrastructure, and moving “up the stack” through acquisitions such as Weights & Biases and OpenPipe.

Intrator also defended the company’s debt strategy, saying CoreWeave is effectively inventing a new financing model for AI infrastructure. He pointed to the company’s ability to repurpose power sources, rapidly deploy capacity, and finance large-scale clusters as proof it is solving problems incumbents never had to face.

“When I look back at history of the company, it took us a year with with a company investor like Fidelity, before they were like, ‘Oh, I get it,’” he said. “So look, we’ve been public for eight months. I couldn’t be prouder of what the company has accomplished.” 



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UK launches $965 million plan to get unemployed Gen Z into AI, hospitality, and engineering

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December 9, 2025

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Some Gen Zers have been desperately trying to break into the job market, sending out thousands of applications, standing on Wall Street with a sign begging for a job, and waitressing at industry conferences to stealthily hand out their résumés. There’s also a growing camp of disillusioned young adults who have completely checked out of education, employment, and training: NEETs. Now, one country is trying to tackle the youth unemployment crisis with a nearly $1 billion plan.

Earlier this week, the U.K. government announced a $965 million investment to create more apprenticeships and place 50,000 young people into roles.

In partnership with regional leaders, the three-year initiative will equip young hopefuls with the skills training needed for local job opportunities. A $186 million chunk of the eye-watering funding will be used for a pilot in which mayors will connect the Gen Zers, especially NEETs, with nearby employers. And to ease the financial burden on some companies, the plan will also cover the full cost of apprenticeships for talent under 25 years old at small and medium-size businesses.

U.K. Gen Zers will have access to more apprenticeship roles in high-demand industries like hospitality and retail. But the government is still paying close attention to the critical skills young professionals need in the age of AI; new short courses in engineering, digital skills, and AI will also start rolling out starting April 2026. This apprenticeship push by the U.K. is all part of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s master plan to get two-thirds of young people active in higher-level learning and apprenticeships, after a sharp drop in 2017.

“For too long, success has been measured by how many young people go to university. That narrow view has held back opportunity and created barriers we need to break,” Starmer said. “It’s time to change the way apprenticeships are viewed and to put them on an equal footing with university.”

Gen Zers are struggling with unemployment in the U.K. and abroad

The U.K.’s ambitious billion-dollar strategy is a welcome one, as youth unemployment rates have surged all around the world.

During the first half of last year, more than 16%, or almost 460,000 of 18- to 24-year-old U.K. men, were NEETs—the highest rate in over a decade. On a global scale, about a fifth of people between ages 15 and 24 in 2023 were NEET-status. And for those actively on the job-hunt, options are scarce. In 2023 and 2024, more than 1.2 million applications were submitted for just under 17,000 open graduate roles in the U.K., according to the Institute of Student Employers (ISE). 

It marked the highest number of applications per job ever recorded since the ISE started collecting data in 1991.

But across the pond, the situation doesn’t look any better: In 2022, there were roughly 4.3 million jobless Gen Z NEETs in the United States. And as of September this year, 9.4% of men and 9% of women ages 20 to 24 were jobless—more than two times higher than the general 4.4% unemployment rate, according to a FRED analysis of U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data. 

What’s more, U.S. officials caution the problem could get even worse. U.S. Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) warned that joblessness among recent college graduates could skyrocket to as high as 25% in the next two to three years, thanks to AI. 

Similar to the U.K. government, Warner proposed a job retraining program—and the issue goes beyond party lines. In partnership with Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), they introduced a bill that would require businesses and federal agencies to report any AI-related job disruption to the Department of Labor, with results to be published to the public. 



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