This 2-part overview for mid-August provides a snapshot of the current housing market. Part 1 will review inventory and sales, and Part 2 will review house prices, rents, mortgage rates, and more.
The key story for existing homes are:
Sales in July were up 0.7% YoY and still historically low.
Sales SAAR (seasonally adjusted annual rate) have been very low almost 4 years.
Months-of-supply is above pre-pandemic levels.
However, inventory growth has slowed significantly - and was down slightly year-over-year in July.
There are also significant regional differences.
And 2026 has been a difficult year for homebuilders. There are still a large number of completed homes for sales, a larger than normal number of unsold homes under construction and builders have been reducing prices to clear inventory.
Realtor.com reports in the July 2026 Monthly Housing Trends: List Prices Fall as Homes Sell Faster that new listings were unchanged year-over-year in July. And active listings were up 2.1% year-over-year.
Year-over-year active listings growth remains in the low single digits. Inventory growth has been slow and steady in recent months, as the national inventory recovery has stalled out. Nationwide inventory is 11.6% below typical 2017–19 levels, about the same as last month’s 11.3% gap.
Active listing growth has slowed recently. Also note the seasonality for active listings. We should expect active listing to be mostly flat for the next few months before declining near the end of the year. Listings are still below pre-pandemic levels (2017 - 2019 on the graph).
Here is some more data on supply and sales.
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