By ALEX VEIGA, Associated Press Business Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Homeowners eager to sell may have to wait a while before a buyer comes along.

As of April, the U.S. housing market had nearly 34% more sellers than buyers shopping for a home, according to an analysis by Redfin.

Aside from April 2020, when the pandemic brought the economy and home sales activity to a standstill, there haven’t been this few buyers in the market for a home before, based on records that date back to 2013.

The trend is good news for home shoppers — if they can afford to buy at current mortgage rates and prices, which are still rising nationally, albeit more slowly.

Fewer buyers means less competition for home listings and more pressure on sellers to dial back their asking price and make other concessions to help get a deal done. That’s a stark reversal from just a few years ago, when it wasn’t uncommon for homeowners to receive offers well above their asking price from multiple home shoppers.

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“The balance of power in the U.S. housing market has shifted toward buyers, but a lot of sellers have yet to see or accept the writing on the wall,” said Asad Khan, a senior economist at Redfin.

The lopsided balance between buyers and sellers is reflected in home sales, which remain in a slump going back to 2022, when mortgage rates began to climb from the rock-bottom lows they reached during the pandemic. Last year, sales of previously occupied U.S. homes sank to their lowest level in nearly 30 years. Sales fell last month to the slowest pace for the month of April going back to 2009.

Sellers began outnumbering buyers in November 2023, when the average rate on a 30-year mortgage climbed to a 23-year high of nearly 8%, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac. The average rate reached 6.89% this week, its highest level since early February.

All told, there were 1.9 million sellers and 1.5 million prospective homebuyers in April, or 490,041 fewer people in the market for a home relative to sellers. A year ago, there were 6.5% more sellers than buyers. Two years ago, buyers outnumbered sellers by 5.3%.

Redfin based its estimate of the number of sellers in April on active listings, or the number of homes for sale at any point during the month. It estimated the pool of people in the market for a home by creating a model that takes several other data into account, including the typical time it takes for a someone to buy after taking a tour of a home.

Faced with a market with fewer potential buyers, some sellers have opted to lower prices or offer sales incentives, such as agreeing to pay for a buyer’s closing costs or other expenses. Nearly 1 in 5 home listings had their price reduced last month, according to Realtor.com.

The growing imbalance between buyers and sellers should pull U.S. home prices 1% lower by the end of this year, according to Redfin.

Prices have already begun to decline in select metro areas. In the four weeks ended April 20, home prices fell in 11 of the top 50 most populous U.S. metro areas, including Dallas, Oakland, California, and Jacksonville, Florida, according to Redfin.

The market with the biggest gap between buyers and sellers is Miami, where sellers outnumber buyers by about 3 to 1, according to Redfin. The strongest seller’s market is Newark, New Jersey, with 47.1% fewer sellers than buyers.

Despite tipping more in favor of buyers, the housing market is likely to remain unaffordable for many Americans. The median U.S. home sales price has jumped 53% over the past six years, far outpacing wage growth.

And while the inventory of previously occupied U.S. homes climbed last month to the highest level since September 2020, it’s still well below pre-pandemic era levels and short on properties that most Americans can afford.

Before the pandemic, households earning $75,000 a year could afford to buy nearly half of all homes on the market nationally. As of March, only 21.2% of home listings were affordable, according to a recent analysis by the National Association of Realtors. A home is considered affordable if monthly payments don’t exceed 30% of household monthly income.

“Without a significant boost in housing inventory at price points below $260,000, the path to homeownership will remain blocked for millions of Americans who are otherwise financially ready to buy,” according to the NAR report.

By LINDSAY WHITEHURST, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court on Friday again cleared the way for the Trump administration to strip temporary legal protections from hundreds of thousands of immigrants for now, pushing the total number of people who could be newly exposed to deportation to nearly 1 million.

The justices lifted a lower-court order that kept humanitarian parole protections in place for more than 500,000 migrants from four countries: Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela. The court has also allowed the administration to revoke temporary legal status from about 350,000 Venezuelan migrants in another case.

Republican President Donald Trump promised on the campaign trail to deport millions of people, and in office has sought to dismantle Biden administration polices that created ways for migrants to live legally in the U.S. Trump amplified false rumors that Haitian immigrants in Ohio, including those with legal status under the humanitarian parole program, were abducting and eating pets during a debate with then-President Joe Biden, according to court documents.

His administration filed an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court after a federal judge in Boston blocked the administration’s push to end the program.

Justice Kentanji Brown Jackson wrote in dissent that the effect of the high court’s order is “to have the lives of half a million migrants unravel all around us before the courts decide their legal claims.” Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined the dissent.

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Jackson echoed what U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani wrote in ruling that ending the legal protections early would leave people with a stark choice: flee the country or risk losing everything. Talwani, an appointee of Democratic President Barack Obama, found that revocations of parole can be done, but on a case-by-case basis.

Her ruling came in mid-April, shortly before permits were due to be canceled. An appeals court refused to lift her order.

The Supreme Court’s order is not a final ruling, but it means the protections will not be in place while the case proceeds. It now returns to the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston.

The Justice Department argues that the protections were always meant to be temporary, and the Department of Homeland Security has the power to revoke them without court interference. The administration says Biden granted the parole en masse, and the law doesn’t require ending it on an individual basis.

Taking on each case individually would be a “gargantuan task,” and slow the government’s efforts to press for their removal, Solicitor General D. John Sauer argued.

Biden used humanitarian parole more than any other president, employing a special presidential authority in effect since 1952.

Beneficiaries included the 532,000 people who have come to the United States with financial sponsors since late 2022, leaving home countries fraught with “instability, dangers and deprivations,” as attorneys for the migrants said. They had to fly to the U.S. at their own expense and have a financial sponsor to qualify for the designation, which lasts for two years.

The Trump administration’s decision was the first-ever mass revocation of humanitarian parole, attorneys for the migrants said. They called the Trump administration’s moves “the largest mass illegalization event in modern American history.”

The case is the latest in a string of emergency appeals the administration has made to the Supreme Court, many of them related to immigration.

The court has sided against Trump in other cases, including slowing his efforts to swiftly deport Venezuelans accused of being gang members to a prison in El Salvador under an 18th century wartime law called the Alien Enemies Act.

A few months after signing head coach Kevin O’Connell to a multiyear contract extension, the Vikings announced on Friday morning that they have done the same with general manager Kwesi Adofo-Mensah.

“I’m beyond excited to continue this journey with the Vikings,” Adofo-Mensah said in a team news release. “This organization means so much to me, and I’ve always believed in what we’re building here.”

In his statement, Adofo-Mensah went on to thank the Wilf family for trusting him to lead the franchise into the future and expressed excitement that he gets to continue to work alongside O’Connell in their pursuit of a Super Bowl.

This always felt like the expected outcome, even if it took some time to come to fruition. Asked a couple of months ago about not having a contract extension under his belt, Adofo-Mensah calmly downplayed the situation.

Maybe because he was confident that both sides would be able to agree to terms at some point.

“It’s a process,” Adofo-Mensah said at the time. “These things take time.”

Now, it appears the time is right for the Vikings.

In a release, co owner Mark Wilf lauded Adofo-Mensah for his leadership, vision and collaboration with the coaching staff, adding, “His dedication and forward-thinking approach have been instrumental in shaping our roster and future.”

In a release, co-owner Zygi Wilf credited Adofo-Mensah for his commitment to building a team that can compete for a Super Bowl, adding, “We are extremely excited to continue this journey with Kwesi in this role and confident in the direction he and Kevin are leading our organization.”

There have been highs and lows for Adofo-Mensah throughout his tenure.

Though his critics will point to the 2022 draft class as his biggest failure, and rightfully so considering most of those players are no longer on the roster, the 2024 free-agent class represents the other side of that spectrum.

That was a watershed moment for the franchise last offseason as the Vikings managed to add quarterback Sam Darnold and running back Aaron Jones on offense, along with edge rusher Jonathan Greenard, edge rusher Andrew Van Ginkel and linebacker Blake Cashman on defense.

Not to be outdone, Adofo-Mensah followed it up by spending upwards of $300 million on free agents this offseason, improving the Vikings with a number of additions, including center Ryan Kelly and right guard Will Fries on offense, and tackles Jonathan Allen and Javon Hargrave on defense.

Some other highlights for Adofo-Mensah include his draft-day maneuvering to select quarterback J.J. McCarthy with the 10th overall pick, extending the contract of star receiver Justin Jefferson, and trading for star tight end T.J. Hockenson, among a handful of other savvy moves.

The next step for the Vikings is continuing to chase a Super Bowl.

“While we’ve made significant strides already, our focus will remain on building a team positioned as a perennial contender,” Adofo-Mensah said in a release. “This extension signifies we are on solid ground with the long-term vision we have set, and I’m incredibly excited to work with this group of talented people as we continue to push the boundaries of what this franchise can achieve.”

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ABUJA, Nigeria (AP) — At least 111 people were confirmed dead in central Nigeria on Friday after floods submerged the market town of Mokwa in the country’s Niger State following torrential rains, officials said.

The heavy rains lasted for several hours Thursday, and media reports quoting local government officials said a dam collapse in a nearby town had worsened the situation. The flooding displaced large amounts of people, the reports said.

Rescuers continued to find more bodies into the afternoon Friday. Earlier reports said 88 people had died, but then at least 23 more bodies were found, Niger State emergency agency spokesman IIbrahim Audu Husseinit told The Associated Press in the afternoon.

That brought the toll to 111, but that could go higher as the search continued.

“More bodies have just been brought and are yet to be counted, but we have at least 111 confirmed already,” Husseini told AP by telephone.

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Mokwa, about 140 miles west of Abuja, is a major meeting point where traders from the south buy food from growers in the north.

In a similar occurrence last September, torrential rains and a dam collapse in Nigeria’s northeastern Maiduguri caused severe flooding, leaving at least 30 people dead and displacing millions, worsening the humanitarian crisis caused by the Boko Haram insurgency.

Nigeria often faces seasonal floods, particularly impacting communities such as Mokwa along the banks of the Niger and Benue Rivers. Communities in the far north of the country, which experience prolonged dry spells worsened by climate change, also see excessive rainfall that leads to severe flooding during their brief wet season.

In videos and photos shared on social media platforms, floodwaters cover neighborhoods where homes are fully or partially submerged, with rooftops barely visible above the brown currents. Residents are also seen waist-deep in water, appearing to salvage what they can carry or rescue others.

The chairman of Mokwa local government area, Jibril Muregi, suggested that poor infrastructure worsened the impact of the flood. He appealed to the government to start “long overdue” construction of waterways in Mokwa under a climate resilience project.