Many potential homebuyers are discouraged as Freddie Mac mortgage charges have crept again up close to 6.5%.
However in my years of reporting on the housing market, I’ve realized that there is much more to dwelling affordability than mortgage charges. We additionally want to contemplate dwelling costs, that are impacted by a number of components, together with stock and purchaser competitors.
The most recent weekly housing market report from actual property know-how firm Redfin, which presents knowledge from the earlier week, confirmed how the market has steadily shifted over the previous couple of years — and there is some excellent news for consumers because the home-buying season heats up.
Median dwelling costs are comparatively tame
I checked out Redfin’s weekly housing market knowledge for the final four-week interval, or Mar. 2-29. The median new itemizing value for this era was $424,975, a year-over-year enhance of two.47%.
The median sale value was $391,000, up 2% since this time final 12 months. Whereas a value enhance could appear to be dangerous information, historic knowledge is every thing.
Throughout this era in 2025 and 2024, year-over-year median sale costs had risen by 2.83% and 4.5%, respectively. Sure, dwelling costs are going up, however they’re inclining extra slowly than the previous couple of years.
What is the distinction between the itemizing and gross sales costs? The median itemizing value refers to the price of homes put available on the market in that four-week interval. The median gross sales value is the ultimate quantity that houses bought for at closing in the identical timeframe.
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Just a few years in the past, the principle motive for the disparity between these two numbers was that homes had been promoting for a lot greater than the itemizing value. In the course of the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. was largely a vendor’s market, and purchaser demand led to bidding wars that drove up the ultimate sale value.
Now, it is the alternative. The distinction largely lies in sellers reducing dwelling costs after itemizing them.
In keeping with the Realtor.com March 2026 Month-to-month Housing Report, 16.2% of dwelling listings skilled value cuts in March. Whereas that is important, it is not as drastic as 2025. Yr-over-year value cuts had been down 1.2%.
The Realtor.com knowledge revealed that value cuts had been most typical within the South (18.4%) and West (17.3%).
Properties are promoting extra shortly than final 12 months
The weekly Redfin knowledge confirmed that houses’ median days available on the market for the final four-week interval has decreased. The final three durations, the median variety of days a home was available on the market was 63 and 60, hitting 56.5 final week. Now, the median is 53.25 days.
That is nonetheless 5.75 days longer than the identical interval in 2025. Nevertheless, it marks excellent news for sellers: The variety of “stale listings” has decreased since February.
A current Redfin report revealed that over half of houses on the market in February had been “stale listings,” that means they’d been available on the market for a minimum of 60 days earlier than going beneath contract with a purchaser. However Redfin’s newest knowledge confirmed the median age of stock lastly dropping under 60 days over the past couple of weeks.
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The variety of properties that went off the market in two weeks or much less elevated throughout this final four-week interval. This refers to houses that went beneath contract, not ones that had been pulled off the market by sellers.
The share steadily climbed all through March and has hit 42.3%. This can be a year-over-year enhance of two.3%. It is also up 0.2% since 2024 and is precisely the identical as this era in 2023.
So, though houses are usually promoting sooner than final March, the numbers have not modified a lot in the previous couple of years total.
How Redfin’s knowledge impacts homebuyers
The weekly Redfin knowledge offers hopeful homebuyers insights into what to anticipate as they start home looking. Fortunately, there are a number of constructive takeaways for consumers this week.
- The speed of dwelling value will increase has slowed down. For probably the most half, consumers haven’t got to fret about skyrocketing costs like they did on the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Median sale costs had been decrease than itemizing costs as a result of fairly a couple of sellers have minimize itemizing costs. If a property has been available on the market for a very long time, you are extra doubtless to have the ability to negotiate a lower cost.
- Value cuts rely in your native actual property market. Realtor.com knowledge confirmed that slashes had been extra widespread within the West and South, however much less so within the Northeast and Midwest.
- Homes have been promoting extra shortly as 2026 progresses, however the fee of sale is slower than or equal to years previous. So, competitors is not essentially rising — and this provides you extra energy as a purchaser.
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