Housing
The housing read — what high mortgage rates are doing to sales, construction, and prices.
August resales broke the year's floor at 3.98 million — the first month under the 4.01–4.19 million band that held every month of 2026, though by only about 30,000 homes. The decline sits at the bottom of the market and it survives the obvious null: NAR's price brackets are fixed in dollars, so a year of appreciation carries the same houses up and out of them, and that arithmetic alone would take 5.1% of sales out of the $100,000-to-$250,000 bracket on the 1.5% Case-Shiller measured. It fell 10.0%. The $250,000-to-$500,000 middle should have fallen 4.8% and fell 2.2%. The same arithmetic reproduces the median's whole reported rise, so these brackets cannot separate which homes sold from what homes are worth — but Case-Shiller, which prices repeat sales of the same houses, had them up 1.5%, so the median's increase is appreciation. Inventory reached 1.62 million, 5.9% above a year ago, and listings built it: over twelve months owners listed 66,000 more homes while sales rose. Construction is shrinking less than July's first estimates showed: July's single-family starts were revised up to 853,000 and August rose to 918,000, 4.7% behind 2025's year-to-date pace, with only the Northeast's decline clearing the margin. Completions fell to a 1.128 million pace, the slowest since December 2018 — mostly apartments started in 2024's slump — and a record 115,000 of the 488,000 unsold new homes have not been started. August's closings were signed in July at 6.54%; contracts signed at 6.67% close in September and October.
- September 24, 2026 Cheaper Houses, Not Lower Prices, Explain the Flat New-Home Median Housing
The median new house sold for $393,700 in August and a revised $392,200 in July, the two lowest months since July 2021. Census's constant-quality index, which prices the same kinds of houses each quarter, has risen 20% since the third quarter of 2021 and 8.3% since early 2023, while the quarterly median fell 4.3% over those three years. Different houses are selling: sales at $1 million and over fell to 4% of August's total from 7% a year earlier, and the West, where the median new house is $547,000 against $363,000 in the South, supplied its smallest share of national sales since 2010. Sales ran at a 684,000 annual rate, up 6.4% from a July revised to 643,000 from 607,000; no national sales change clears its margin of error. A record 114,000 of the 483,000 unsold new homes have not been started, and the built ones, 369,000, are the fewest since January 2024.
- September 17, 2026 Contract Signings Rose 0.3 Percent Only Because July Was Revised Down Housing
Contract signings on existing homes rose 0.3 percent in August only because July was revised down: August's index of 71.2 is the level July was first reported at. Signings ran 4.7 percent below August 2025, a month signed at nearly the same mortgage rate, which cuts against NAR's rate explanation for the annual decline. This week's 30-year rate averaged 6.95 percent, the highest since January 2025; no August contract saw it.
- September 17, 2026 Completions Fell 12 Percent Because Builders Started Fewer Apartments in 2024 Housing
Builders completed homes at a 1.128 million annual pace in August, the slowest since December 2018. Over twelve months completions ran 12% below the year before, and apartments were 112,000 of the 190,000 decline, tracking apartment starts that fell to 336,000 in 2024 from 459,000 in 2023. Single-family starts rose to a 918,000 annual rate in August but trail 2025's year-to-date pace by 4.7%.
- September 10, 2026 Sales of Homes Priced $100,000 to $250,000 Fell 10 Percent Housing
Existing-home sales ran at a 3.98 million annual pace in August, 2.0% below July and 1.2% below a year ago — the first month under the 4.01–4.19 million band that held every month of 2026, though by only about 30,000 at an annual rate. In NAR's unadjusted single-family breakdown, sales between $100,000 and $250,000 fell 10.0% while the $250,000-to-$500,000 middle fell only 2.2%. Neither is explained by prices: NAR's brackets are fixed dollar amounts, so a year of appreciation carries the same houses up through them, and on Case-Shiller's 1.5% that accounts for about half the bottom bracket's fall and would have taken the middle down twice as far as it went. The same arithmetic means the median's reported 1.6% rise cannot be read off these brackets at all — though Case-Shiller, which prices repeat sales of the same houses, says prices did rise about that much. Inventory reached 1.62 million, 5.9% above a year ago, and listings built it: owners listed 66,000 more homes over twelve months while sales rose. The rate behind August's closings was 6.54%, five basis points above the rate behind July's.
- August 25, 2026 Unstarted Houses Accounted for the Entire Rise in Unsold New Homes Housing
Unsold new homes rose 1.9% (±1.2) in July to 488,000 — the only national figure in the report that clears its margin of error — and all 9,000 units of the increase are houses nobody has started. Census counts every stage in months' supply, so the 9.6-month headline includes 115,000 houses that do not exist yet; counting only the built ones, supply is 7.4 months, the same as last July. Sales ran at a 607,000 annual rate, 10.5% (±14.0) below a June revised up from 628,000 to 678,000 — against June's own first estimate the decline is 3.3%. Midwest sales, at 43,000, fell 50.6% (±10.6) on the year, the weakest month there since 2012, while Midwest builders held starts steady.
- August 18, 2026 The South Accounts for the Entire Annual Decline in Housing Starts Housing
July housing starts fell 12.4% to a 1.239 million annual pace, a statistically significant drop that reversed June's all-apartment jump. Single-family starts fell to 808,000 — the lowest since November 2022, down a significant 15.7% on the year. The South accounts for more than the entire annual decline in total starts (−205,000 against −193,000 nationally, the only regional total outside the margin of error) and about two-thirds of the single-family decline — the pullback is concentrated in the oversupplied half of the country. Permits rose 5.0% to 1.443 million while homes authorized but not yet started climbed a significant 10.3% on the year; completions, at 1.212 million, are the lowest since May 2020.
- August 11, 2026 Investors Pulled Back and Repeat Owners Took Their Place Housing
July existing-home sales ran at a 4.06 million annual pace (−1.7% m/m, +0.7% y/y) — a seventh straight month inside 4.01–4.19 million, with June revised up to 4.13 million. Under the flat total the buyer pool shifted: individual investors and second-home buyers fell to 14% of transactions from 20% a year ago, cash to 26% from 31%, leaving repeat owner-occupant buyers at roughly 57% and about three purchases in four carrying a mortgage. The Northeast–South price gap widened to 4.3 points of annual growth. Inventory slipped 0.6% below its year-ago level after going flat in June. The mortgage climb to 6.69% began in early July — after the contracts behind July's closings — so the rate test arrives with the August report on September 10.
- July 24, 2026 The New-Home Discount to Existing Homes Doubled in a Year Housing
June's new-home report was mostly noise — the +1.6% headline sits inside a ±14.8-point interval — with two real signals underneath: the West fell 22.4%, the only statistically significant regional move, and the median new home ($398,300) now sells about 10% below the median existing home ($440,600), a discount that has roughly doubled in a year. Builders who must sell keep cutting; owners who can wait keep setting records.
- July 17, 2026 June's Building Jump Was All Apartments Housing
June housing starts jumped 19.0% to a 1.427 million annual pace, but the entire gain was multifamily — apartment starts rose 76% off a weak May while single-family starts held at 895,000, statistically flat against both May and a year ago. Permits, the forward signal, fell 3.0%. The resale market's sharp North–South split doesn't map onto construction: no region's single-family permits moved outside the survey's margin of error from a year ago. What the levels show is geography — roughly four of every five single-family homes permitted were in the South and West, the oversupplied half; the South permits ten single-family homes for every one the Northeast does. New building can't relieve the starved North and keeps adding supply to the glutted South.
- July 5, 2026 The South Has the Homes and the North Has the Buyers Housing
Homes for sale in the 50 largest US metros have split by region — the South and West hold 12% more than before the pandemic, the North 36% fewer. Sellers don't explain it — they list about 18% fewer homes than in 2019 in both regions. Buyers do. In the South, homes under contract are down a fifth from 2019 and listing prices are falling; in the North, homes under contract are up 30% against far fewer listings, and prices hold flat while Southern prices fall.