July 13, 2026
Reports and articles referenced:
Housing data for download:
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
- While national home prices are cooling off, a handful of secondary markets are charting a different course, posting double-digit gains.
- I’m Danielle Hale, Chief Economist at Realtor.com, and this is The Weekly Housing Outlook—an evolution of our Weekly Housing Update that is now a forward-looking data guide built for when you start your week. Long-time watchers will note that we’ve shifted the release date from Friday to Monday and have expanded what we’ll cover.
- Realtor.com has been publishing the Hottest Markets Report since before I became the Chief Economist here nearly 9 years ago. It is our way of measuring competition by tracking where intense online housing demand hits limited housing supply—specifically looking at page views per property against how fast homes sell.
- When I first stepped into this role, the West dominated this index. Today, the competitive core has shifted into the Northeast corridor. Hartford–this month’s leader– serves as a primary example. It’s a haven for buyers priced out of New York and Boston who are searching for relative affordability
- In this month’s report – Sr. Economist Hannah Jones digs into a few trends. First, she looks at markets that have been mainstays on the list over the last 4.5 years since interest rates shot up, and this list is really all about secondary markets in the Northeast. Two markets, Manchester-Nashua, NH and Springfield, MA have made the list every single month. Meanwhile, another three–Hartford, CT; Rochester, NY; and Worcester, MA–have only fallen off the list a handful of months. In these areas conditions remain competitive and home prices have risen by double digits in the last 4 years while home prices have fallen nationally in this period.
- Next, Hannah looks back to 5 years ago, when there were the list was centered further West of where it is today. She explores what happened to cool off conditions in 5 example markets and discusses what that means for buyers and sellers in those areas as well a noting a generalized lesson for real estate, saying: “the metros that have stayed hottest longest are, almost without exception, places with little room to build, while the ones that cooled fastest are places where supply had somewhere to go.”
- Now let’s turn to the week ahead, and the economic indicators that I’ve got my eye on and that the Realtor.com Economics team will react to.
- Tuesday – we’ll get the biggest indicator of the week: CPI – Headline Inflation will likely come in slightly behind the 4.2% increase we saw in May, but Core inflation could still meet or exceed the 2.9% reading last month. Energy prices likely eased in June, driving some relief in the headline figure as conflict in the middle-east looked like it was on a path to resolution, but these prices remain a wildcard as long as the conflict in Iran is unresolved. While this is the biggest indicator, I don’t expect a reading that’s going to fall enough outside of the norm to change anything for the Fed. (Cleveland Fed Nowcast)
- Given these expectations, however, higher inflation readings than what I’ve outlined could put further upward pressure on Mortgage Rates due out Thursday – which are already facing upward pressure from an uptick in 10-year Treasury yields, and another breakdown in Iran ceasefire talks.
- Also on Thursday, NAR will report on Pending Home Sales. In the Realtor.com June housing report, Sr. Economist Jake Krimmel noted – that contract signings were up for a 7th straight month. I’m looking to see a slight uptick in pending home sales that will show that buyers continue to bite as more sellers list their homes and inventory continues its steady climb.
- Finally, on Friday we’ll see New Residential Construction data that tracks housing permits, starts, and completions in the U.S. and each region, breaking them down into single- and multi-family categories. The construction data has been pretty volatile lately, and I’m watching to see if multi-family starts bounce back from a pretty abysmal May. I’m also looking to see if the deceleration in single-family permit decline is finally enough to mean we see growth in single-family permits in June.
- From Realtor.com this week, you’ll see our June review of the Rental Market by Economist Jiayi Xu and the Luxury Market by Sr. Economist Anthony Smith, and a special report on Short Sales by our summer intern, Economist Glen Morgenstern.
- Now let’s recap other developments over the past few weeks to get you caught up on the state of the market.
- Most importantly, last week we issued our Midyear Housing Forecast update, which is our up-to-date outlook on how home sales, pricing, mortgage rates and other relevant data will trend in the rest of the year.
- On the whole, the original forecast was pretty good, but we have made some small modifications to reflect the data and events that we’ve seen so far in 2026.
- First – while our mortgage rate projection was unchanged, there has been more variability than we expected in our initial forecast. In February, rates dropped below 6% for the first time in 3.5 years before shooting back up to 6.5% as conflict in the Middle East sparked inflation fears. Year-to-date, our projection has been spot on, but the impact on buyers and sellers is far less certainty than we’d initially expected.
- Our home price forecast has been revised slightly lower to reflect the lower pace of growth we’ve seen so far this year, but prices are still expected to eke out a small gain of 1.2%. This rate of growth is slower than inflation and expected wage growth, which will help improve affordability for buyers.
- In fact, the slower pace of price growth and mortgage rates which are lower than in 2025 mean that monthly payments for homebuyers are projected to drop for the first time since 2020, and the drop is now likely to be a bit larger than first expected. This really is a win-win for buyers who see lower monthly payments, albeit modestly lower, and sellers who still see higher selling prices in many markets, although again, the change is modest.
- In this environment of modest improvement, we expect a small home sales gain of 1% that would mean an annual sales total of 4.10 million. This is revised modestly lower from our original forecast of 4.13 million mostly on the basis of a more sluggish start. Through May, home sales were up just 0.2% year to date, so our projection of 1% growth implies improvement!
- Fortunately, in EHS data released the day after we issued this forecast, we saw some of what we needed. June existing-home sales fell to 4.09M from May’s upwardly revised figure, but were higher than one year ago by enough of a margin to bring the year-to-date gains in EHS to 0.7%. Not to mention, this was the 3rd straight month of year-over-year gains. Put simply, this is pretty in-line with what we expected to see. Existing home sales prices rose modestly, suggesting the soft gains seen in recent Case-Shiller home price measures are continuing.
- The Realtor.com June housing report suggests that better expectations from sellers are behind some of the sales uptick. The median asking price fell 2.5% in June as active listings growth slowed and new listings were up year-over-year even as they retreated from May, as is seasonally typical.
- June’s jobs report was a bit of a dud this month, with job growth figures coming in lower than expected. Nonetheless, unemployment dropped to 4.2%, and wage growth continued to climb. This report doesn’t change the outlook much–the labor market is still in a good place–but it does remind us not to take this strength as a given.
- Mortgage rates continue to hover right around 6.5%. This big picture average obscures the day to day ups and downs that are a bit larger than usual as the Middle East outlook changes. Even in the weekly data, the last 2 weeks saw a 6 basis point decline on optimism about a lasting deal followed by a 6 basis point jump as the ceasefire deal appeared to fray. Fortunately, the ups and downs have been relatively contained, but they still mean buyers in today’s market should consider a range of mortgage rates when thinking about their home price target. Each week on Thursdays, my colleague Anthony Smith discusses these trends with one or more of the economists on the team. You’ll see him with Joel Berner from last week as well as an episode with our economist intern Glen and me from the week before.
- Finally, the team issued a trio of reports that are worth a look. To mark the 250th anniversary of American independence Sr. Economist Joel Berner examined how Federal policy has played a role in opening doors to homeownership, a legacy that stretches back centuries and now includes the 21st Century Road to Housing Act.
- As foreclosures tick up from still low levels, historically, Joel also published a report on foreclosures and what happens when they come up for sale. Joel found that in April, just 1.3% of listings were REOs or formerly foreclosed homes, a figure that has gradually climbed since 2020, but is otherwise historically low although REOs are not spread out evenly but concentrated in certain markets.
- And Anthony Smith published a luxury spotlight on Bend, Oregon tracking the growing premium in this recreational dream market.
- You can find all the details including the Realtor.com Market Clock, full reports and our housing data for download, at realtor.com/research. You can also follow us on X (formerly Twitter) for real-time updates. And Instagram for graphics.
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