The Housing Market Tips Into Balance While Agents Lose Confidence

The US housing market has finally shifted into balance, according to nearly half of the agents surveyed in CNBC’s second-quarter Housing Market Survey. In the second quarter, 44% of real estate agents said they were seeing a balanced housing market between buyer and seller, up from 30% in the third quarter of 2025, when the survey began. The Q2 survey ran from June 23 to June 30 and drew responses from 53 agents selected randomly across the country.

The same agents who see balance are far less confident that sales will improve. Just 19% of respondents expect sales to pick up in the near future, down from 48% a year ago. The gap between a balanced market and stalled momentum is the story of the housing summer.

More Agents Now Call the Market Balanced

The shift to balance is the most striking change in the survey’s first year. In the third quarter of 2025, fewer than a third of agents described their local market as balanced between buyer and seller. By the second quarter of 2026, that share had climbed to 44%, with 53 agents responding between June 23 and June 30.

The CNBC Housing Market Survey is a national inquiry of real estate agents selected randomly across the country. “It certainly feels like, depending on the home, depending on the neighborhood, depending on the condition and the price point, that both the buyer and the seller do have a little bit of leverage,” said Jeremy Kane, an agent with EXP Realty in Denver. The full Q2 findings are in the Q2 Housing Market Survey results.

The shift is happening against a backdrop of more supply and softer pricing. Home sales in May were up 3% from a year earlier, according to the National Association of Realtors, while asking prices in June fell 2.5% year over year, the steepest annual decline in the June housing report on asking prices.

Sellers Are Cutting Less and Canceling Less

The pricing data points to the same shift. In the third quarter of last year, 89% of agents surveyed said at least one of their listings had been reduced. In the most recent quarter, that share fell to 57%. Contract cancellations, a separate signal of deals falling apart after an accepted offer, eased too. Just 40% of agents reported at least one deal collapse in the second quarter, down from 51% in the first.

Sellers appear to be reading market conditions and pricing to them from the start. Listing reductions before a deal and cancellations after one both fall when sellers stop testing the market with optimistic prices.

Bruce Jones, an agent with Compass in Nashville, Tennessee, said the dynamic in his market has shifted away from the price fights of the past year. “No one really seems to be fighting me much on price like they used to,” Jones said. Prices in his market have plateaued, he added.

If it’s priced correctly, it is moving.

Bruce Jones, agent with Compass in Nashville, Tennessee, in CNBC’s Q2 Housing Market Survey.

Asking Prices Just Posted Their Steepest June Drop Since 2017

The national median asking price fell 2.5% year over year in June to $430,000, according to Realtor.com. That is the steepest annual decline in Realtor.com data since the company began tracking the figure in 2017. It is also the eighth straight month of year-over-year drops. Pending sales rose 3.7% year over year in June, extending a seven-month growth streak.

Closed prices have moved in the same direction, but slower. National home prices were up just under 1% from a year ago, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller national home price index. Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale called the falling prices and rising pending sales two halves of the same story, not a contradiction.

Regional divergence is wide. Year-over-year median list prices fell 4% in the West and 2.5% in the South, while the Northeast slipped 1% and the Midwest held flat, according to Realtor.com data; prices per square foot are falling in 33 of the top 50 metros, led by Austin (-8.2%), Memphis (-6%) and Buffalo (-5.2%).

The Iran War Pushed Mortgage Rates Off Their Spring Low

The rate path explains part of the stall. Mortgage rates had been falling after last summer, hitting a low of 5.99% on the 30-year fixed at the end of February, according to Mortgage News Daily. They then spiked higher in early March after the start of the Iran war. The 30-year fixed last peaked at 6.75% on May 19 and has hovered in the 6.6% range since.

The spring rate window that buyers had been counting on closed fast. The March spike took the 30-year fixed roughly three quarters of a percentage point off its February low in about two months.

Buyer concerns shifted with rates. At the end of last year, 26% of agents said their buyers’ biggest worry was mortgage rates. In the most recent survey, that share jumped to 37%, while inventory concerns dropped sharply. The Iran war itself, which rattled buyers in March, no longer appears among the top worries. The 30-year fixed, after peaking at 6.75% on May 19, has hovered in the 6.6% range since, touching a nine-month high at the same time per mortgage rates hitting a nine-month high in late May.

The shift in buyers’ top concern points to where the bottleneck sits.

Inventory Has Nearly Doubled Since 2023

The supply side has rebuilt faster than demand. There are now 1.1 million homes listed for sale, according to Realtor.com, up from around 614,000 at the same point in 2023, just after the pandemic housing boom. Active inventory rose 1.9% year over year in June, and new listings climbed 2.4%.

Inventory gains were led by the Northeast (+8.5%) and Midwest (+7.3%). The South (-0.1%) and West (+0.3%) stayed nearly flat. Louisville (+28.7%), Buffalo (+27.7%) and Seattle (+20.6%) recorded the largest inventory jumps among the top 50 metros, according to Realtor.com data. Contract cancellations tracked at 6.9% of pending sales in April and May, modestly below the 7.3% rate a year earlier.

Pending home sales have now risen for seven consecutive months, the longest streak since the 2020-2021 housing boom, and the April pending index was 3.2% above a year earlier, per the 1.4% April pending sales gain. The median home spent 53 days on market in June, identical to a year earlier, ending a 26-month streak of homes selling more slowly than the prior year.

• 1.1 million homes for sale in June 2026 (Realtor.com)
• 614,000 homes for sale at the same point in 2023 (Realtor.com)
• Active inventory +1.9% YoY; new listings +2.4% YoY (Realtor.com)
• Median 53 days on market in June, ending a 26-month longer-than-prior-year streak
• Pending sales +3.7% YoY, a seven-month streak (Realtor.com)

Agents Are Far Less Optimistic Anyway

The clearest signal in the survey is the disconnect between market balance and agent confidence. Just 19% of respondents expect sales to improve in the near future, down from 48% in the third quarter of last year. A majority, 67%, expect sales to stay about the same. Stagnantly high mortgage rates are largely to blame for the mood shift. Sales volume has been improving for months, but the summer outlook is muted.

Joel Eronko, an agent with Nicholas Joel Realty Group in Houston, said the gap between national headlines and local conditions is the harder problem to manage right now. His focus this quarter is keeping clients focused on real-time, hyper-local data rather than national economic headlines. Local divergence is real: the national average hides markets where prices are still rising, including Providence (+8.7% per square foot), Indianapolis (+4.9%) and New York (+3.4%). For now, balance is the working reality for sellers and buyers.

The challenge isn’t a lack of buyers, it’s a psychology gap.

Joel Eronko, Nicholas Joel Realty Group, Houston, in CNBC’s Q2 Housing Market Survey.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does a balanced housing market mean?

A balanced housing market is one where supply and demand are roughly even, so neither buyers nor sellers hold most of the negotiation power. In CNBC’s Q2 2026 Housing Market Survey, 44% of agents described their local market that way, up from 30% a year earlier.

Why are agents less optimistic even with a more balanced market?

Stagnantly high mortgage rates. The 30-year fixed peaked at 6.75% on May 19, 2026, and has hovered in the 6.6% range since. About 37% of agents in the Q2 survey named mortgage rates as their buyers’ biggest worry, up from 26% at year-end 2025.

Are home prices dropping in 2026?

Asking prices are. The national median asking price fell 2.5% year over year in June, the steepest annual decline in Realtor.com data since 2017, and the eighth straight monthly drop. Closed prices on the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller index are still up just under 1% year over year.

How much housing inventory is on the market?

About 1.1 million homes were listed for sale in June 2026, according to Realtor.com, up from roughly 614,000 at the same point in 2023. Active inventory rose 1.9% year over year, and new listings climbed 2.4%.