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Want more housing market stories from Lance Lamberts ResiClub in your inbox? Subscribe to the ResiClub newsletter. When assessing home price momentum, ResiClub believes it’s important to monitor active listings and months of supply. If active listings start to rapidly increase as homes remain on the market for longer periods, it may indicate pricing softness or weakness. Conversely, a rapid decline in active listings could suggest a market that is tightening or heating up. Since the national Pandemic Housing Boom fizzled out in 2022, the national power dynamic has slowly been shifting directionally from sellers to buyers. Of course, across the country that shift has varied significantly. Generally speaking, local housing markets where active inventory has jumped above pre-pandemic 2019 levels have experienced softer home price growth (or outright price declines) over the past 36 months. Conversely, local housing markets where active inventory remains far below pre-pandemic 2019 levels have, generally speaking, experienced more resilient home price growth over the past 36 months. Where is national active inventory headed? National active listings as tracked by Realtor.com are on the rise on a year-over-year basis (+17% between September 2024 and September 2025). This indicates that homebuyers have gained some leverage in many parts of the country over the past year. Some sellers markets have turned into balanced markets, and more balanced markets have turned into buyers markets. Nationally, were still below pre-pandemic 2019 inventory levels (-10% below September 2019) and some resale markets, in particular chunks of the Midwest and Northeast, still remain tight-ish. While national active inventory is still up year-over-year, the pace of growth has slowed in recent monthsmore than typical seasonality would suggestas some sellers have thrown in the towel and delisted (more on that in another piece). These are the past September inventory/active listings totals, according to Realtor.com: September 2017 -> 1,308,607 September 2018 -> 1,301,922 September 2019 -> 1,224,868 September 2020 -> 749,395 September 2021 -> 578,070 (overheating during the Pandemic Housing Boom) September 2022 -> 731,496 September 2023 -> 702,430 September 2024 -> 940,980 September 2025 -> 1,100,407 If we maintain the current year-over-year pace of inventory growth (+159,427 homes for sale), we’d have 1,259,834 active inventory come September 2026. Below is the year-over-year percentage change by state: !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); While active housing inventory is rising in most markets on a year-over-year basis, some markets still remain tight-ish (although it’s loosening in those places, too). As ResiClub has been documenting, both active resale and new homes for sale remain the most limited across huge swaths of the Midwest and Northeast. Thats where home sellers this spring had, relatively speaking, more power. In contrast, active housing inventory for sale has neared or surpassed pre-pandemic 2019 levels in many parts of the Sunbelt and Mountain West, including metro area housing markets such as Punta Gorda and Austin. Many of these areas saw major price surges during the Pandemic Housing Boom, with home prices getting stretched compared to local incomes. As pandemic-driven domestic migration slowed and mortgage rates rose, markets like Tampa and Austin faced challenges, relying on local income levels to support frothy home prices. This softening trend was accelerated further by an abundance of new home supply in the Sunbelt. Builders are often willing to lower prices or offer affordability incentives (if they have the margins to do so) to maintain sales in a shifted market, which also has a cooling effect on the resale market: Some buyers, who would have previously considered existing homes, are now opting for new homes with more favorable deals. That puts additional upward pressure on resale inventory. !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); At the end of September 2025, 15 states were above pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. (The District of Columbiawhich we left out of this analysisis also back above pre-pandemic 2019 active inventory levels. Softness in D.C. proper predates the current administrations job cuts.) !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}(); Big picture: Over the past few years, weve observed a softening across many housing markets as strained affordability tempers the fervor of a market that was unsustainably hot during the Pandemic Housing Boom. While home prices are falling some in pockets of the Sunbelt, a big chunk of Northeast and Midwest markets still eked out a little price appreciation this spring. Nationally aggregated home prices have been pretty close to flat in 2025. Click to expand. Below is another version of the table abovebut this one includes every month since January 2017. (Click the link to see an interactive version.) !function(){"use strict";window.addEventListener("message",function(a){if(void 0!==a.data["datawrapper-height"]){var e=document.querySelectorAll("iframe");for(var t in a.data["datawrapper-height"])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data["datawrapper-height"][t]+"px";r.style.height=d}}})}();
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Across the U.S., more schools are implementing policies restricting cellphones as concerns about digital distraction, mental health, and academic performance rise. The scale of the issue is significant. According to a 2023 report from Common Sense Media, 97% of students between the ages of 11 and 17 use their cellphones at least once during the school day. These students spend a median of 43 minutes online each day during school hours. Social media, YouTube, and gaming were the students top cellphone uses. Schools have already begun taking action. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics published in 2025 shows that 77% of public schools ban cellphones during classes. Some 38% of schools have cellphone policies that restrict use outside of class as wellincluding during free periods, between classes, or during extracurricular activities. Policymakers in different states and educators in school districts across the country are putting into place a variety of solutions. Some rely on partial restrictions, while others enforce complete bans. Many are still searching for the balance between technology access and minimizing distraction. What is clear, however, is that cellphones have become one of the central issues shaping todays classroom environment. The role of technology in the classroom As researchers and professors who study the integration of technology for teaching and learningand who are also parents of school-age childrenwe firmly believe that digital technologies are no longer optional add-ons. They have become indispensable in modern classrooms, acting as versatile instruments for instruction, collaboration, and student engagement. Take, for example, the ongoing shift from traditional paper textbooks to digital ones. This transformation has broadened access and created new opportunities for interactive, personalized learning. Abundant evidence demonstrates the positive effects of technology in supporting students engagement in class and their academic performance. Students access to digital devices has improved significantly as schools across the United States continue investing in technology infrastructure. A 2023 report from the National Center for Education Statisitics indicates that 94% to 95% of public schools now provide devices to students who need them, although disparities exist between states. A growing number of districts are adopting 1:1 initiatives, ensuring that every student has access to a personal device such as a laptop or tablet. These initiatives accelerated after the COVID-19 pandemic made clear the need for reliable access to learning technologies in schools for all students. They highlight the central role technology now plays in shaping everyday classroom instruction. These technologies hold great educational potential. Yet, when not integrated thoughtfully and regulated effectively, they can inadvertently reduce focus and undermine learning. Our recent systematic review on digital distraction in classrooms, which synthesized 26 empirical studies, finds three main drivers of distraction among students: Technology-related factors included constant social networking, texting, and cellphone addiction. These accounted for over half of the reported distractions. Personal needs, such as entertainment, made up more than one-third. Instructional environment, including classroom instruction that isnt engaging, poor classroom management, and difficult course content, accounted for the rest. To address these challenges, the authors of the papers we reviewed suggested strategies such as teaching students how to control their own behavior and focus, silencing notifications, issuing clear device policies, or banning devices. The studies in our review also drew a clear distinction between school-provided and personally owned mobile devices. Devices provided by schools are typically equipped for instructional purposes, enhanced with stronger security and designed to restrict distracting uses. Personal devices are far less regulated and more prone to off-task use. As schools increasingly provide devices designed for learning, the role of personal cellphones in classrooms becomes harder to justify as they present more risks of distraction than educational benefits. Laws and policies regarding cellphone use Several states in the U.S. have passed laws banning or restricting cellphone use in schools, with some notable differences. States vary in how they define wireless communication devices. In Michigan, Senate Bill 234, passed in May 2025, describes a wireless communication device as an electronic device capable of, but not limited to, text messaging, voice communication, entertainment, navigation, accessing the internet, or producing email. While most of the states have several technology types listed under wireless communication devices, a Colorado bill passed in May 2025 clearly identified that laptops and tablets did not fall under the list of restricted wireless communication devices. Most state laws dont specify whether the bans apply to both personally owned devices and school-owned devices. One exception is the bill Missouri passed in July 2025, which clearly specifies its ban refers only to personal devices. North Carolina made exceptions in a bill approved in July 2025, allowing students to use wireless communication devices for instructional purposes. Other exceptions in the North Carolina bill include an emergency, when students individual education programs call for it, and a documented medical condition. In their bills, most states provide recommendations for school districts to create cellphone use policy for their students. To take one typical example, the policy for Wake County in North Carolina, one of the states largest school districts, specifically refers to personal wireless communication devices. For elementary and middle school students, they must be silenced and put away between morning and afternoon bells, either in a backpack or locker. For high school students, teaches may allow them to be used for lessons, but they must otherwise be silenced and put away during instructional time. They can be used on school buses with low volume and headphones. Kui Xie is the dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the University of Missouri-Columbia. Florence Martin is a professor of learning, design, and technology at North Carolina State University. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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E-Commerce
Your inbox is brimming with new emails, and you need to decide which to reply to quickly and which to ignore. You try to schedule something for next week, but your calendar is already packed with recurring meetings. So many employees have asked for a particular day offor requested a particular shift schedulethat you cant grant all their requests. You post a job listing for a single position and get 250 applications. These situations arise constantly in our work lives, and their analogues come up in our personal lives. But despite their frequency, we often struggle with how to handle them. We barrel through our inbox and move things around on our calendar. We follow (perhaps unwritten) rules to determine which employees get requests filled and which do not. Sometimes we decide its too much to figure out ourselves and outsource the whole endeavor to AI. The common theme of the examples above is what economists call excess demand, which arises when more people want something than we can serve. Economists have a go-to solution for excess demand: rising prices. When prices go up, fewer people find that it is worthwhile, or even feasible, to pay for the thing, so they stop asking for it. But there are times when price doesnt existfor example, it would be inappropriate to charge people for a job interview. In these scenarios, we dont use prices, but we still decide who gets what. We respond to emails and take meetings. We decide who gets the day off and who gets the best shift schedule. We interview candidates and eventually hire someone. Instead of prices changing, a hidden market arises to resolve the excess demand. These hidden markets are under our control. We set the rules to decide who gets what, and we can optimize them. To do so, we must think carefully about what we want our hidden markets to achieve: a set of goals that I call the three Es: efficiency, equity, and ease. Effective hidden markets are efficient, meaning that they do not waste resources and they give resources to the people who value them most. You want to use your precious inbox time to respond to the emails that will generate the most value for recipients. You want to give the day off to an employee who really values it (say prioritizing a once-in-a-lifetime event, like a childs graduation, over something that could happen another day, like a beach trip with friends). You want the job to go to the candidate who is the best fit for the firm. Effective hidden markets are equitable, meaning that they treat people fairly. It would be unfair if one employee always got their preferred schedule while an equally deserving employee was always given something less desirable. Effective hidden markets are also easy to participate in. A hidden market would not be easy if getting what you want required an ordeal, like sending a dozen follow-up emails to get a reply or doing personal favors for a manager to get a preferred day off. This three-E framework can help you improveand even optimizethe hidden markets you control. When I open my inbox, I think a lot about whether I am using my time efficiently. Doing so requires triaging anything that isnt important. Among my important emails, I first look to see if anything requires my immediate attention. When in doubt, I use a last-in, first-out rule for triage, meaning I prioritize emails that came in later to ones that came in earlier. I do this because people who emailed me most recently might still be working on whatever project they had just pinged me about. If so, a snappy reply might be more valuable to them than to someone who emailed me last night. When I look at my calendar, I ask whether I am being equitable in how I allocate my time. This has caused me to question my recurring meetings, which repeat on the same day and time (e.g., each Thursday at 10 a.m.). Recurring meetings impose a first-in-time, first-in-right rule that gives perpetual access to a scarce resource based on the order in which it was originally claimed. A recurring meeting set up a year ago gets priority (for Thursday at 10 a.m.) over anything that comes later. But a new project might be just as worthyor even more worthyof my time than the projects whose meetings are clogging my calendar. It is unfair (and possibly also inefficient) to give it the dregs. Rules for staff scheduling might be based on seniority or worker tenure. In workplaces with regular turnoverwhere a person who sticks around long enough will eventually go from getting to pick last to getting to pick firstsuch rules might be fair. But if the same set of workers get their first choices for decades while workers who started a few years later are consistently out of luck, this is no longer equitable. To combat this, many workplaces use first-come, first-served rules to let workers claim vacation days or preferred shifts. While first-come, first-served is familiar and ubiquitous, it is not necessarily easy for market participants. Employees might have to make requests before they know what schedule would be ideal and, if there is a race to sign up, employees must be vigilant about asking immediately once requests start being accepted. But a thoughtful market designer can make these systems easier and more equitable by building in memory, so workers who did not get their first choice this year get priority next year and perhaps by building in a fair lottery (rather than choosing based on whose email request arrived a few seconds earlier). In these situationsand in many otherswe are market designers who must resolve excess demand by allocating scarce resources to the many people who want them. Considering the three-Es can help us generate allocations that are efficient, equitable, and easy for market participants. If we do it right, we can achieve a fourth E: elevating us as market designers, so we are as happy as possible with the outcomes.
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