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Realtor.com says August housing market cooled as pending sales, inventory and prices eased

Realtor.com’s August housing report found weaker pending sales, rising inventory and continued year-over-year price declines, while delistings stayed below last year’s pace.

Realtor.com said the U.S. housing market cooled in August as pending sales weakened, inventory increased and list prices fell from a year earlier, according to its Monthly Housing Trends Report released Sept. 2, 2026.

The report said the late-summer market lost momentum while mortgage rates remained elevated. Realtor.com said the pattern reflected both seasonal slowdown and buyers becoming more selective.

Realtor.com said pending sales declined year over year for the first time since last November. Contract signings fell 3.7% from a year earlier, while listings in pending status slipped 0.2% year over year. Homes spent a median of 60 days on the market.

The national median list price was $424,500, down 1.0% from July. The report also said the figure was down 1.3% from a year earlier, while another section of the release said the national median list price fell 1.2% year over year. Realtor.com did not resolve the discrepancy in the text provided. The report said list price per square foot fell 1.8% year over year and that August marked the 10th consecutive month of annual list-price declines.

Price reductions appeared on 20.4% of active listings, unchanged from a year ago and up 0.4 percentage points from July. Delistings were 12.6% below last year’s pace, and the share of active inventory delisted held at about 5.5% for six weeks, according to the report.

Active listings rose 3.6% year over year to 1,140,000. Realtor.com said national inventory remained 11.1% below typical pre-pandemic levels. New listings totaled 401,760, down 5.2% from July and 0.1% from a year earlier.

Regional patterns were mixed. The report said price cuts were least common in the Northeast at 14.1% and the Midwest at 19.6%, and most common in the South at 21.4% and the West at 22.0%. Inventory rose in all four regions, led by the Midwest at 10.5% and the Northeast at 9.1%.

At the metro level, Realtor.com said median list price per square foot fell in 36 of the 50 largest metros. Austin posted the largest annual decline at 8.1%, followed by Tampa at 5.6% and Memphis at 4.1%. Providence recorded the biggest gain at 9.3%, while Indianapolis rose 4.4% and Chicago rose 3.6%.

Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale said the market is entering a seasonal cool-down with less momentum than earlier in the year. She said higher mortgage rates are meeting a point in the calendar when activity typically slows. Senior economist Jake Krimmel said August showed a mixed reading, with buyer demand softening and price cuts rising modestly above last year’s pace, while sellers still showed more patience than during last year’s late-summer delisting wave.

Realtor.com said it will continue watching whether the gap in delistings versus 2025 persists, whether sellers turn more to price reductions and how regional differences develop.