Buyers had a bit more leverage this fall. Active listings climbed 5.6% year over year as of September 30, 2026, marking a third straight month of quicker annual growth. It is a modest pickup from June's low point of 1.9% annual growth, and a far cry from the 16.9% pace seen a year earlier, but it is still movement in buyers' favor.
Mortgage rates and long term Treasury yields are back at a two year high, and that tends to cool demand. The question now is how much that chill spreads as we move deeper into the slower season. We are already seeing signs that the softening is gaining a bit more traction. Even so, national inventory remains just under pre pandemic levels, sitting 5.2% below September 2019.
Realtor.com's September totals trace the swing from the boom to today: 1,308,607 (2017), 1,301,922 (2018), 1,224,868 (2019), 749,395 (2020), 578,070 (2021), 731,496 (2022), 702,430 (2023), 940,980 (2024), 1,100,407 (2025), and 1,161,615 (2026). That is a gain of 159,427 listings from 2024 to 2025, followed by another 61,208 from 2025 to 2026.
State level maps show most places added inventory over the past year, though not as quickly as the prior year. A few areas remain relatively snug even as they cool. Notably, Florida, which has been one of the softest spots over the past three years, saw a small year over year dip in active listings at 10% lower. The broader correction there has eased in many parts of the state, even as some pockets in Southwest Florida remain weak. Builders say targeted affordability moves have helped them meet the market.
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Resale and new home listings remain scarcest in parts of the Midwest and Northeast. Over the past four years, sellers in those regions generally held more bargaining power than many of their peers in the South. By contrast, inventory has moved close to or above 2019 levels across broad stretches of the Sun Belt and the Mountain West, including metros like Punta Gorda and Austin.
Why the divide? Many Southern and Mountain markets saw prices leap during the Pandemic Housing Boom, stretching beyond local incomes. As migration slowed and borrowing costs rose, places like Punta Gorda and Austin had to lean more on local paychecks to support lifted prices, which proved tough.
A wave of new construction across the Sun Belt added to it. Builders, when margins allow, often trim prices or offer incentives to keep sales moving, which pulls some buyers to new builds and leaves more existing homes sitting on the market.
To better track the recovery, we now compare inventory on a per-household basis, measuring active listings per 1,000 households, and define the pre pandemic benchmark as the two-year average for that month across 2018 and 2019. Those tweaks do not change the story much, but they matter as households shift over time.
As of the end of September 2026, nineteen states sat above the pre pandemic 2018-2019 baseline for active listings: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. The District of Columbia has returned to a position above pre pandemic 2019 levels. On a household adjusted basis, ten states were above the 2018-2019 average: Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, Nebraska, Nevada, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, and Washington. D.C. clears that per household bar too.
Step back and the through line is clear. The Pandemic Housing Boom overheated prices and pulled fundamentals out of alignment, especially after long term rates moved off the ZIRP era's floor. That hit affordability and pushed inventory higher.
With more homes on the market and national resale price growth running below income growth, real (inflation adjusted) prices have cooled and fundamentals are slowly repairing. In places that saw outright price declines, especially boomtowns and some new build segments, that healing has been faster. We are still working through that cooling and recalibration phase.
More listings and softer price growth usually translate into a little more negotiating room for buyers, though some spots are still tight. With rates at a two year high and the slower season underway, local conditions may keep shifting. If you are tracking a specific area, compare today's active listings per 1,000 households with the 2018-2019 average to see whether your ZIP is already above pre pandemic norms or still running lean.
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