Part 1: Current State of the Housing Market; Overview for mid-January 2026

NOTE: I’ve discontinued the daily postings on my blog, but I’m planning on writing this newsletter for several more years!

This 2-part overview for mid-January provides a snapshot of the current housing market.

Note that we are still missing some key pieces of data due to the government shutdown, such as housing starts and new home sales for November.

The key stories this year for existing homes are that inventory increased sharply (almost back to pre-pandemic levels), and sales in 2025 were the lowest since 1995 (slightly lower than in 2024). That means prices are under pressure, although there will not be a huge wave of distressed sales since most homeowners have substantial equity and low mortgage rates.

It has also been a disappointing year for new homebuilders (but not as horrible as the housing bust!). Homebuilders have a large number of completed homes for sales, a larger than normal number of unsold homes under construction and are reducing prices to compete with more existing home inventory.

Active Listings for Existing Homes Up Year-over-year

Realtor.com reports in the December 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends Report that new listings were up 1.7% year-over-year in December. And active listings were up 12.1% year-over-year.

The number of actively listed homes rose 12.1% compared to the same time last year, marking the 26th consecutive month of year-on-year inventory gains. On a monthly basis, active inventory fell 8.9% since November (a typical seasonal pattern), falling below 1 million homes for the first time since April. December’s 12.1% YoY gain also means annual active listing growth has slowed in each of the last 7 months (down from ~30% peak YoY growth in May and June). Nationwide, December inventory is 12.5% below typical 2017–2019 levels, a similar level to each of the past several months.

Note the seasonality for active listings. Also, there are significant differences in inventory year-over-year (YoY) and month-over-month (MoM) between sources. Here are the numbers through December:

I’ve discussed this before (see: Why Measures of Existing Home Inventory appear Different). The NAR has changed when they report - much earlier in the month than previous years - and perhaps there was a change in methodology. It is also possible with the earlier reporting cycle, some sources had errors in their inventory data (I noted San Diego inventory data appeared incorrect).

I’m looking into these differences.

Here is some more data on supply and sales.

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