A housing market that many expected to stall this spring instead appears to be settling into a more balanced pattern, according to Realtor.com's June housing report.
The report found asking prices fell 2.5% from a year earlier — the eighth consecutive month of annual declines and the largest drop since Realtor.com began tracking the data in 2017. Yet buyers continued returning to the market, with pending sales rising 3.7% year over year for a seventh straight month even as mortgage rates hovered around 6.5%.
Rather than signaling a housing correction, the report suggests sellers are adjusting expectations while buyers are becoming more willing to transact.
"Eight straight months of falling prices and seven straight months of rising pending sales are not a contradiction," Danielle Hale, Realtor.com's chief economist, said in the report. "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."
A Healthier Purchase Market
For loan officers, the data point to improving purchase conditions rather than weakening demand.
The national median listing price was $430,000 in June, while active inventory rose 1.9% year over year to more than 1.1 million homes. New listings increased 2.4%, providing buyers with more choices heading into the second half of the year.
At the same time, homes spent a median of 53 days on the market — unchanged from a year earlier and ending a 26-month streak in which properties consistently took longer to sell than the previous year. Realtor.com said the median home is now spending roughly the same amount of time on the market as before the pandemic.
The combination suggests transaction activity has stabilized despite elevated borrowing costs.
Sellers Adjust Instead Of Waiting
Another encouraging sign for lenders is that sellers appear to be pricing homes more realistically rather than repeatedly cutting prices after listing.
Although 18.8% of active listings included a price reduction in June, that share was 1.9 percentage points lower than a year ago, even as it rose modestly from May in a typical seasonal pattern. Realtor.com said 2026 has featured both lower asking prices and fewer price reductions than last year, indicating sellers are adjusting prices before listing instead of chasing the market lower.
The report also found contract cancellations remained below year-ago levels, suggesting buyers who enter contracts are largely following through with purchases despite continued economic uncertainty.
What To Watch
While national trends point toward a more balanced market, conditions continue to vary significantly by region.
Prices have fallen the most in the West and South since peaking in 2022, while the Midwest and Northeast have continued posting gains because of tighter inventory. Realtor.com described the divergence as a "two Americas" housing market, with affordability pressures easing in some regions while supply constraints continue supporting prices in others.
Realtor.com expects the traditional seasonal slowdown to emerge during July but said the key indicators to watch will be whether homes begin sitting on the market longer, price reductions accelerate beyond normal summer patterns, or new listings begin to retreat. For now, those warning signs have yet to appear.
