Category: Latest Posts

Over the prior decade, avg. new US single-family homes sold shrank from 2.7K sq-ft to 2.4K sq-ft, while price per sq-ft climbed ~72%.
In 2025, 1 in 4 new single-family homes sold measured under 1.8K sq-ft, up from ~1 in 6 a decade earlier nationwide.
Meanwhile, the share of new US homes at 3K sq-ft or larger slipped from ~1 in 3 to 1 in 5 over the decade.
Builders increasingly used smaller designs to offset rising land, labor, and material costs, helping keep prices within reach amid mortgage rates near ~6% to ~7%.
For budget-focused and first-time buyers, smaller homes could ease down payments and monthly costs, though the higher price per sq-ft showed housing stayed expensive.

Active inventory sat ↑~4% yearly nationwide, though growth cooled for the first time in five weeks, signaling buyer-friendly rebalancing continued without a sharp supply breakout.
Homes typically spent 61 days on market, unchanged yearly and steady versus recent readings, matching the usual Late-Q3 slowdown after quicker conditions earlier in 2026.
New listings were ↓~1% yearly, returning near 2025 levels as affordability pressures kept some buyers cautious and some sellers hesitant about testing prices.
The median listing price stood at $419K, ↓~1% yearly, while median price per sq-ft slipped to $222, its lowest point since Early-Q1 2026.
Inventory gains and elevated mortgage rates continued shifting supply-demand conditions toward buyers, but the overall national market remained slow-paced rather than rapidly changing.

Higher mortgage rates are slowing demand, making monthly payments harder to justify and pushing more buyers to wait.
Pending sales are losing momentum, showing that fewer buyers are moving from house hunting to actually making offers.
Homeowners with cheaper existing mortgages aren’t eager to move, keeping many potential listings off the market.
The result? A housing stalemate: buyers want better payments, sellers don’t want to give up cheap loans, and transactions remain unusually slow.

In the four weeks ending August 23, new US listings ↑0.4% weekly, while total homes for sale ↑0.5%, reaching their highest levels since Early-Q2.
Pending US home sales ↓1.1% weekly to a 6-mo low, as high housing costs kept many buyers sidelined despite inventory improving nationally.
The median US home-sale price ↑1.9% yearly to >$400K, while the avg. mortgage rate sat near 7%, close to a 13-mo high.
Rising inventory and softer demand created buyer-friendly conditions, giving active shoppers more room to negotiate price cuts or concessions in many US markets.
Experts said homes listed for several weeks often offered the best leverage, while sellers benefited from realistic pricing instead of chasing prices from prior years.

A listings platform reviewed current public luxury sales across major US metros, finding top transactions ranging from $3.7M to $130M across local markets.
The highest recorded sale reached $130M, while other leading transactions landed at $47M, $40.2M, $40M, $21.2M, $19M, $18M, and $17.5M nationwide.
At the high end, four standout markets still had fifth-place transactions above $10M, showing especially deep luxury pricing compared with other major metros.
One market showed the tightest spread among its five priciest sales, with values running from $24M to $40M in the current period.
This snapshot covered publicly marketed properties from listing systems and could miss private deals; in nondisclosure markets, top figures reflected listing prices instead.

Pending home sales turned slightly negative yearly in the latest reading, ending an 8 mo streak of gains as higher borrowing costs cooled buyer momentum.
Contract signings also softened yearly, homes took 60 days to sell, and mortgage rates climbed from ~6% in Late-Q1 to the high-6% range recently.
Buyers gained some leverage: median list price slipped to $424.5K, price cuts reached ~20% of listings, delistings fell yearly, and active inventory ↑~4%.
Even with more listings, national inventory stayed ~11% below typical pre-pandemic levels, showing the US still faced a persistent housing shortage beneath current buyer hesitation.
Currently, experts are watching seller delistings, pricing strategy, and whether regional differences keep narrowing as buyers and sellers adjust to firmer borrowing costs.