BAM Key Details:
- Realtor.com’s June 2026 housing report shows list prices fell 2.5% year over year, the steepest annual drop since 2017, while pending sales rose 3.7% year over year for a seventh straight month.
- Price reductions hit 18.8% of listings, down 1.9 percentage points from a year ago, and contract cancellations held at 6.9% of pending sales, below last year’s 7.3% rate.
- List prices are now down 4.2% from their June 2022 peak of $449,000.
Asking prices declined year-over-year in June for the eighth consecutive month. At the same time, pending home sales rose for the seventh month in a row.
Those dual trends might sound contradictory, but Realtor.com’s chief economist Danielle Hale broke it down:
“Eight straight months of falling prices and seven straight months of rising pending sales are not a contradiction. And they have to be considered together to get a full picture of what’s happening in housing right now.”
According to Realtor.com’s June 2026 housing trends report, asking prices have fallen 2.5% year over year, their steepest drop since 2017.
Here’s what it means for you and your clients.
Are Home Prices Falling in 2026?
The short answer is yes. List prices are down 2.5% year over year in June. The year 2017 is as far back as Realtor.com’s recorded housing data goes, and this drop is the steepest since.
Price per square foot also fell, down 2.1% year over year, confirming this isn’t based on a change in home sizes. Across the board, list prices have gone down.
And while price reductions have ticked up seasonally from May’s 17.5% of listings to June’s 18.8%, the rate is still down 1.9 percentage points from a year ago.
Month over month, the national median list price remains more or less flat at $430,000.
Why Falling Prices and Rising Pending Sales Aren’t a Contradiction
Data for June marks the eighth consecutive month of year-over-year list price declines, along with the seventh straight month of pending sales growth.
It’s also the longest pending sales growth streak since December 2020 through June 2021, with pending sales in June rising 3.7% from a year ago.
Even better, contract cancellations held below last year’s rate (6.9% for June 2026 vs 7.3% for June 2025), showing these pending deals are converting, not falling apart. And delistings are down nearly 10% from a year ago.
As to why this is going on, Realtor.com’s research shows sellers pricing their homes realistically from the start instead of listing high and cutting later.
Hale commented:
“Sellers are reading market conditions and are pricing accordingly from the start rather than listing high and cutting later, and buyers are taking note and making bids. This is a welcome sign that we are in a functioning market.”
Normalization, Not a Correction
Realtor.com’s report explicitly frames the recent price drops as normalization, not a market correction.
List prices were never going to climb indefinitely without incomes rising sharply or mortgage rates falling sharply. Neither of those happened, so prices are normalizing to drift closer to what buyers can afford.
If it helps, here’s a quick way to distinguish between normalization and correction (because I had to look this up).
A correction shows stress:
- Deals falling apart
- Sellers pulling listings in a panic
- Sales volume drying up
Normalization shows the opposite: prices adjusting while sales activity stays healthy or even improves.
In a normalizing market, buyer-seller dynamics look like negotiation, not a standoff: sellers are willing to take a slight haircut to move, and buyers get a bit of price relief to offset rates that have settled higher than they hoped.
Realtor.com economists cited the 3.7% annual increase in pending sales as the surest sign this isn’t market distress.
Keep in mind that’s the national number. Price and sale trends look different depending on the specific region you serve, as well as the specific market.
The decline in asking prices is broad-based but concentrated more heavily in the South and West where inventory has grown faster than in Northeast and Midwest markets.
The following top 10 lists illustrate that beautifully:
Top 10 Metros with the Biggest YoY Decreases in Median List Price
- Memphis (-12.9%)
- Austin (-9.8%)
- Buffalo (-9.1%)
- Los Angeles (-7.0%)
- San Diego (-6.6%)
- Washington (-6.4%)
- Phoenix (-5.9%)
- Indianapolis (-5.0%)
- Tampa (-4.6%)
- San Antonio (-4.5%)
Top 9 Metros with the Biggest YoY Increases in Median List Price
- Virginia Beach (5.8%)
- Chicago (3.8%)
- Hartford (3.5%)
- Atlanta (1.9%)
- Pittsburgh (1.9%)
- Kansas City (1.3%)
- Columbus (1.2%)
- New York (0.7%)
- Philadelphia (0.6%)
Only nine of the 50 largest U.S. metros posted an annual increase in median list price.
Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel summed up the “two Americas” contrast:
“The two Americas story in housing is now four years in the making. In the West and South, prices gave ground back as affordability limits were tested. In the Midwest and Northeast, supply stayed tight enough and demand strong enough that prices kept climbing even through a historic rate shock. The national number hides two opposing trends under the surface.”
Use local housing data on list prices and pending sales when you’re talking to local homebuyers and sellers about these dual trends and their multi-month streaks.
