• Home prices rose 0.25% in September, with annual growth accelerating to 3.8%, the fastest since June 2025.
  • Pending sales fell 4% month over month to the lowest level since 2014, excluding the April 2020 pandemic freeze.
  • A record 22% of active listings had price cuts in early October, but sellers are holding firm on asking prices.

A Market Standoff

U.S. home prices remain stubbornly high, even as buyers pull back. Redfin (RDFN)’s Home Price Index rose 0.25% in September, with annual growth accelerating to 3.8%—the fastest pace since June 2025. Prices climbed in 34 of 50 major metros, led by Philadelphia (+1.9%), while Fort Worth (-0.9%) saw the steepest decline. The headline figures, which could not be independently verified as of October 20, paint a picture of a market at an impasse: buyers have more negotiating power, but sellers aren’t budging.

Demand Cools, Prices Don’t

The latest verified data from Redfin shows pending sales fell 4% month over month in September, reaching their lowest level since 2014 apart from the April 2020 pandemic freeze. Demand is weakening faster than prices. “Buyers have more room to negotiate,” said Chen Zhao, Redfin’s research head, pointing to opportunities for concessions on price, repairs, and closing costs. But rising national prices can coexist with substantial negotiating room: 60.5% of homes sold below their original asking price in September, and the median sale price rose just 1.3% annually to $393,895.

More recent transaction measures show cooling momentum. For the four weeks ending October 11, median sale prices rose just 0.5% annually, while median asking prices fell 0.3%. A record 22% of active listings had price cuts in that period. Yet sellers are showing remarkable resistance—Redfin’s early-October data show asking prices slipping only modestly.

Mortgage Rates Bite

The slowdown is largely a financing story. The weekly average mortgage rate reached 7.4% on October 8, and Redfin’s typical monthly-payment measure was $2,777—up 8.8% from a year earlier. Expensive credit is suppressing transactions: pending sales fell annually in all 50 major metros, with especially steep declines in Seattle, Los Angeles, and San Diego. September’s inventory reached its highest level since March 2020, while 14.5% of purchase agreements were canceled—the highest September share since the pandemic began.

“The expected 2026 housing recovery has not materialized,” Rocket Companies (RKT) management said in its latest quarterly results, underscoring the volume pressure across the industry. Rocket acquired Redfin in July 2025. The brokerage is now led by CEO Alessio Sanfilippo, who took over on August 31, 2026.

Regional Divergence

Even within the same report, markets move differently. September median sale prices rose 7.9% annually in Cleveland and 6.7% in St. Louis, but fell 4.4% in Seattle and 2.6% in Denver. A related October 19 California report showed September existing single-family sales falling 6.5% annually while the statewide median price rose 1.7% to $899,720—another example of weak sales coexisting with sticky prices. These are median-price changes, not the headline’s metro index readings, but they demonstrate why national averages are an incomplete guide.

The Road Ahead

Zhao says weak sales could lead prices to flatten or fall “in the not-so-distant future.” Early-October asking-price declines and record listing-price cuts are consistent with that possibility, but they do not establish that every market will decline. The important indicators are whether mortgage rates ease, whether inventory continues accumulating, and whether price cuts translate into lower closed-sale prices rather than merely smaller gains.

For now, the data support two propositions: negotiating conditions have improved, while monthly ownership costs remain near record levels. That is an economic tension, not evidence of a measured public-opinion consensus.

A Redfin spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on the September figures by press time.

Correction: An earlier version of this article misstated the month in which pending sales fell to their lowest level since 2014. It was September, not August.