Housing Market Update: What's Happening With Prices and Rates This Month

This Month's Numbers

All figures below cover the United States as a whole.

Notes on reading this table:

• The rows cover different months because the sources publish on different schedules. NAR's August 2026 existing-home sales report came out 2026-09-10; Realtor.com's September 2026 listing data came out at the start of October.
• NAR's inventory count and Realtor.com's active-listing count are built differently and are not interchangeable. Compare each one only to its own history, which is what the year-over-year figures above do.
• Redfin measured the same August 2026 month differently again: a median U.S. sale price of $398,596, up 2.2% year over year, with 291,769 homes sold, down 0.45% from 293,083 in August 2025, and a median 50 days on market (Redfin, August 2026). Different coverage and different methods produce different medians for the same month.
• Asking prices are moving the other way from sold prices. The median U.S. listing price was $419,250 in September 2026, down 1.2% from August 2026 and down 1.4% year over year — an 11th straight annual decline (Realtor.com, September 2026).

What Changed and Why

Two concrete things drove the month, and neither is a mood.

Mortgage rates moved up four weeks running. Freddie Mac's survey put the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 6.95% as of September 17, 2026, up from 6.76% the prior week (Freddie Mac, 2026-09-17). It rose to 7.03% in the release of September 24, 2026 (Freddie Mac via Fox Business, 2026-09-24), then to 7.28% for the week of October 1, 2026 — the highest reading since November 22, 2023, and 94 basis points above the 6.34% average of a year earlier (Freddie Mac via Fox Business, 2026-10-01). Closings recorded in August reflect contracts signed weeks earlier, so that late-September jump is not yet in the 3.98 million seasonally adjusted annual sales rate for August 2026 (National Association of Realtors, 2026-09-10). What it does show up in is pipeline activity: homes under contract fell 4.1% year over year in September 2026 (Realtor.com via StockTitan, September 2026).

Supply kept building while buyers stepped back. Total housing inventory rose 3.2% month over month to 1.62 million units in August 2026, a 4.9-month supply described as the highest in over a decade (National Association of Realtors, 2026-09-10). Realtor.com counted 1,161,615 active listings in September 2026, up 5.4% year over year, its fastest annual gain in six months — and that happened even though new listings fell 0.7% year over year to under 395,000 (Realtor.com, September 2026). In other words, the pile grew because homes sat, not because sellers flooded in. Sellers are responding with price cuts: 20.8% of active listings had a reduction in September 2026, up 0.9 percentage points year over year and the highest September reading since 2018 (Realtor.com via StockTitan, September 2026).

That combination — supply at a 4.9-month level and sales down 2.0% month over month (National Association of Realtors, 2026-09-10) — is a slower market by two measures over the same period. It is not a price collapse: August 2026 was the 38th consecutive month of year-over-year increases in the median existing-home price (National Association of Realtors, 2026-09-10).

This guide does not forecast where prices or rates go next. If you want a tripwire to watch, use two: Freddie Mac's weekly 30-year fixed average, and your local MLS active-listing count month over month.

What This Means for You

• If you're buying: the 4.9-month supply in August 2026 and the 20.8% of September 2026 listings carrying a price cut (National Association of Realtors, 2026-09-10; Realtor.com via StockTitan, September 2026) mean asking for concessions is more normal than it was a year ago. Pull the same two numbers for your own metro from your local MLS before assuming they hold where you're shopping — a submarket with under two months of supply behaves nothing like the national figure. Whether to move now turns on your own facts: your credit profile, your down payment, how long you'd hold the home, and whether local inventory is rising or flat.
• If you're selling: price to the market that exists, not to the one in your head. Homes took a median of 61 days on market in September 2026, one day longer than August (Realtor.com, September 2026), and the median asking price was $419,250, down 1.4% year over year (Realtor.com, September 2026) while sold prices were still up 1.6% year over year (National Association of Realtors, 2026-09-10). Ask your agent for days-on-market and sale-to-list figures for your ZIP code and property type over the last 90 days before setting a number. No list price guarantees a sale date.
• If you're renting and weighing a purchase: NAR's Housing Affordability Index was 104.7 in August 2026, up from 101.2 a year earlier (National Association of Realtors via GlobeNewswire, 2026-09-10) — better than last year, but that was measured before the 30-year fixed hit 7.28% in the week of October 1, 2026 (Freddie Mac via Fox Business, 2026-10-01). Price out an actual payment at today's quoted rate for your loan type — FHA, VA, conventional and jumbo price differently — plus taxes, insurance and any HOA dues, and compare it with your renewal rent.
• If you're refinancing: at a 7.28% 30-year fixed average for the week of October 1, 2026, versus 6.34% a year earlier (Freddie Mac via Fox Business, 2026-10-01), a rate-and-term refinance only makes sense if your current note rate is meaningfully above today's quote. Get a written loan estimate, divide total costs by the monthly saving to get your break-even in months, and compare that with how long you plan to keep the loan. No lender can promise you a particular rate before underwriting.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

1. National Association of Realtors — NAR Existing-Home Sales Report Shows 2.0% Decrease in August (2026-09-10)
2. National Association of Realtors (via GlobeNewswire) — NAR Existing-Home Sales Report Shows 2.0% Decrease in August (2026-09-10)
3. National Association of Realtors — NAR Existing-Home Sales Report Shows 1.7% Decrease in July (2026-08-11)
4. Freddie Mac (via Fox Business) — Mortgage rates rise to 7.28%: Freddie Mac (2026-10-01)
5. Freddie Mac (via Fox Business) — Mortgage rates top 7% for first time since early 2025 (2026-09-24)
6. Freddie Mac — Mortgage Rates Average 6.95% (2026-09-17)
7. Redfin — United States Housing Market (2026-08)
8. Realtor.com — Price Cuts Reach Yearly High as Inventory Nears Pre-Pandemic Levels: Realtor.com® September Housing Report (2026-09)
9. Realtor.com (via StockTitan) — Realtor.com September Report: Price Cuts Hit 20.8% (2026-09)