Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-April 2026
This 2-part overview for mid-April provides a snapshot of the current housing market.
Note that we are still missing some key pieces of data due to the government shutdown. The Census Bureau is now scheduled to release housing starts for both February and March on April 29th (usually we’d have March housing starts later this week). Census will be caught up on housing starts after the April release on May 21st.
For new home sales, the February and March reports will be released on May 5th, and the April report is scheduled to be released May 28th. The May report will be released as originally scheduled in June.
The key story for existing homes is that months-of-inventory is above pre-pandemic levels, due to a combination of increasing inventory and sluggish sales. That means prices are under pressure and we might see a year-over-year decline in prices sometime this year. However, there will not be a huge wave of distressed sales since most homeowners have substantial equity and low mortgage rates.
There are also significant regional differences, with some areas seeing more inventory and price declines, and other areas - like the Northeast - seeing smaller increases in inventory and house prices are increasing.
It also appears 2026 will be a difficult year for homebuilders. There are still a large number of completed homes for sales, a larger than normal number of unsold homes under construction and they are reducing prices to compete with more existing home inventory.
Active Listings for Existing Homes Up Year-over-year
Realtor.com reports in the March 2026 Monthly Housing Report: Spring’s Promise Meets Fresh Headwinds that new listings were up 0.7% year-over-year in March. And active listings were up 8.1% year-over-year.
Year-on-year active listings growth is up from last month (when it was +7.9%), the first increase since April to May 2025. Nationwide inventory is 13.8% below typical 2017–19 levels, down from 16.8% last month.
Active listing growth has slowed recently. Also note the seasonality for active listings. We should expect active listing to pick up through July - but listings are still below pre-pandemic levels (2017 - 2019 on the graph).
Here is some more data on supply and sales.
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