“Inventory growth is beginning to stall,” says Lawrence Yun, chief economist at the National Association of REALTORS®. “With distressed property sales at historic lows and housing wealth at an all-time high, homeowners are in no rush to list their properties during the winter months,” Yun says. NAR’s data shows that housing inventories fell 6% from October. Still, inventory has improved over the last year, about 8% higher than a year ago, giving buyers more options than they’ve had in years.
Seasonal changes are common this time of year; yet realtor.com® recently reported a record-high number of delistings, with about 6% of listings having been pulled from the market by home sellers. But this could reflect sellers’ flexibility and preference to wait rather than having to reduce their price, says Danielle Hale, chief economist at realtor.com®.
Nationally, home sales did improve last month, although at a slower pace. Existing-home sales—including single-family homes, townhomes, condos and co-ops—rose 0.5% in November, though they remain 1% below last year, NAR reported Friday. Meanwhile, home prices continue to climb, up 1.2% compared to a year ago, reaching a median existing-home price of $409,200 in November, NAR’s latest data shows.
Opportunities Open Up for Buyers
Lower mortgage rates may be drawing some once-priced-out home buyers off the sidelines. Mortgage rates averaged 6.24% in November, down from roughly 7% at the start of 2025 and helping to reduce buyers’ borrowing costs.
“Once you get rates just below six-and-a-half percent, that unlocks a lot of buyers,” says Brad O’Connor, chief economist at Florida REALTORS®. “Whenever mortgage rates fall, we see a response in the data—sales rise. And as rates dipped below about six-and-a-half percent this fall, the number of homes going under contract jumped—for the first time in quite a while.”
For example, Florida’s pending sales for single-family homes surged 23% in October compared to the prior year, coinciding this fall’s rate drop.
NAR predicts that a one-percentage drop in mortgage rates, from 7% to 6%—forecasted for 2026—could add about 5.5 million households, including 1.6 million renters, to the pool of potential home buyers.
Reprinted from NAR. Link to the full article here.
