According to Realtor.com Research, the national housing market has settled into a period of steady supply and measured pricing. Active inventory has now held above 1.1 million properties for seven straight weeks, which marks the most sustained level of available homes we've seen since before the pandemic hit. What's interesting here is that homes are selling at roughly the same pace as they were a year ago, and new listings are coming to market at similar rates to last year as well, yet inventory keeps building week after week. This tells me that homes aren't moving as quickly as the new supply arriving, so stock is accumulating on the market.
On the pricing side, asking prices have stabilized this week but remain noticeably lower compared to where they were a year ago, and Realtor.com Research expects prices to continue declining as we head into the fall months. More than 100,000 homes received price reductions for the fourth consecutive week, showing that sellers are still feeling pressure to adjust their expectations. The good news is that median prices have now been below year-ago levels for 29 straight weeks, so we're not seeing wild swings anymore.
The time it takes to sell a home has shifted slightly, with homes now sitting on the market about two days longer than they were at this point last year. This is pretty typical for late summer when buyer activity naturally cools down. Interestingly though, since May the market has actually been moving homes at the same speed or faster than last year, which is a real turnaround from the sluggish period that stretched from April 2024 through May 2026 when everything was moving slower.
What I am seeing locally here in the Bay Area and East Bay is that this national shift toward more balanced inventory is creating genuine opportunity for buyers who have the means to move. When homes linger longer and prices soften, serious buyers gain real negotiating power they haven't had in years.
