Newly pending home sales fell 8.5 percent from a year earlier in September, according to Zillow’s monthly market report, as mortgage rates ending the month at 7.28 percent pushed the housing market into what one economist called an early winter. Preliminary figures put existing-home closings at about 319,000 for the month, down 2.5 percent from a year ago and 5.6 percent from August.
Pending contracts matter because they predict closings a month or two ahead, and they fell 11.2 percent in a single month. The weakness is broad: weekly data from another brokerage put pending sales at their lowest level since late 2023, with about 299,000 seasonally adjusted contracts in the four weeks to mid-September.
The rental market is moving the other way. The typical U.S. rent reached $1,932, up 2.7 percent from a year earlier, the fastest annual increase since April 2025, as would-be buyers who cannot make ownership math work compete for leases instead. The typical home is valued at about $366,913, up just 1 percent in a year, but a buyer with 20 percent down now pays roughly $1,922 a month before taxes and insurance, 6.7 percent more than a year ago.
Sellers are adjusting slowly. Inventory is 2.5 percent higher than last September, extending more than two years of annual gains, yet new listings remain well below pre-pandemic norms. Homes took a median 29 days to go under contract, two days longer than a year ago, and more than a quarter of listings took a price cut.
Economists quoted in the reports expect sales to stay below last year’s levels through the fourth quarter, with any recovery likely pushed into early 2027 and dependent on mortgage rates easing toward the mid-sixes. Until then, the American housing market’s centre of gravity has shifted: renting is the decision, buying is the wait.
Builders are quietly becoming the market’s swing suppliers. With resale listings scarce, newly built homes have taken an unusually large share of sales, and builders, unlike individual sellers, can buy down mortgage rates to move inventory, which is why some Sun Belt markets now price new homes below existing ones per square foot. Whether that bridge holds through winter depends on whether builders judge this a pause or a regime, and start, or stop, the next subdivision accordingly.
US News Zone will continue to track the data behind this story as new figures are released.
Related reading: Holiday Forecasts Split: Record Online Sales, Smaller Household Budgets · Fed Minutes Show a Hawkish Committee and a Market Betting on a Pause · Mortgage Rates Top 7 Percent and the Housing Freeze Deepens
