The number of Americans actively shopping for a home fell to the lowest level on record in July, according to data released Aug. 13 by the real estate brokerage Redfin, leaving roughly half a million more sellers than buyers in the U.S. housing market.

Redfin estimated there were about 966,752 buyers in the market in July, down 2.5% from June. Sellers numbered an estimated 1,462,921 — a 0.3% monthly decline that put listings at their lowest point in a year, but still 51.3% above the buyer count.

That gap is just short of the 51.8% surplus Redfin recorded in December, the widest in its data.

The report describes a market where the imbalance is being driven from the demand side rather than the supply side. Fewer sellers entered the market in July. Far fewer buyers did.

Background

The buyer shortfall did not appear suddenly. It is the accumulated result of three years in which borrowing costs, home prices and household caution moved in the same direction.

Mortgage rates climbed through the summer. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the 30-year fixed rate at 6.66% for the week ending July 30 — the highest reading in roughly a year, up from 6.58% the prior week and the fourth consecutive weekly increase. The rate stood at 6.67% as of Aug. 13.

Rates track the 10-year Treasury yield, which sat near 4.66% in late July after the Federal Reserve held policy steady at its July meeting. Bond markets have priced in higher inflation risk since the resumption of the Iran conflict pushed crude oil prices up earlier in the year.

Prices have not adjusted downward to compensate. A separate Redfin report issued Aug. 12 put the median U.S. home-sale price at $407,730 in July, up 3.2% from a year earlier and the highest July figure on record.

In simple terms: the cost of borrowing went up while the price of the asset also went up. Monthly payments rose from both directions at once.

The squeeze has been most visible among people trying to enter the market for the first time. The National Association of Realtors reported in April that first-time buyers accounted for 21% of all home purchases in its 2026 generational survey, down from 24% the prior year and the lowest share since the association began tracking the figure in 1981.

How the Measurement Works

Redfin does not count buyers directly. There is no federal registry of people shopping for a house.

The company estimates the buyer figure using proprietary data on how long a typical buyer takes between a first home tour and closing, combined with multiple listing service data on active listings and pending sales. The seller figure is simpler: it is the count of active MLS listings. Redfin publishes its full methodology and an interactive dashboard for the series.

Both figures are seasonally adjusted and, Redfin notes, subject to revision.

Redfin classifies a metro as a buyer’s market when sellers outnumber buyers by more than 10%, and a seller’s market when sellers fall more than 10% short of buyers. Anything inside that band is called balanced.

This matters for how the “record low” should be read. The figure is a record within Redfin’s own dataset — a proprietary series, not a government statistic with a decades-long history. It is a useful real-time signal of demand. It is not the same category of measurement as the Census Bureau’s homeownership rate or NAR’s existing-home sales count.

Where the Imbalance Is Widest

Of the 49 metropolitan areas Redfin analyzed, 39 — nearly 80% — qualified as buyer’s markets in July. Fort Lauderdale was excluded for insufficient data.

Miami led the country with an estimated 154% more sellers than buyers, followed by Nashville at 150.8%, Houston at 129.8%, San Antonio at 116.3% and Austin at 111.9%.

The clustering is not random. Miami and Nashville absorbed heavy new construction and investor activity during the pandemic boom, and that inventory is now reaching a market where local buyers have been priced out. In Miami, rising insurance costs, higher HOA fees and climate risk have compounded the price problem. Houston, San Antonio and Austin carry some of the largest homebuilding pipelines in the country, and new units continue to deliver into cooling demand.

Conditions tilted further toward buyers in 34 of the 39 buyer’s markets between June and July. Miami’s surplus widened from 134% to 154%. Seattle’s jumped from 46% to 65%. Fort Worth’s rose from 67% to 86%.

Buyers lost ground in only five: West Palm Beach, San Antonio, Pittsburgh, Virginia Beach and Dallas.

The Six Exceptions — Led by Long Island

Six metros ran the other way.

Nassau County, New York was the strongest seller’s market in the country, with an estimated 36.2% fewer sellers than buyers — roughly 11,958 buyers against 7,631 listings. The other five were Newark, New Jersey (-20.7%), Providence, Rhode Island (-16.7%), Milwaukee (-15.1%), New Brunswick, New Jersey (-12.9%) and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (-12.8%).

Redfin attributes the pattern largely to constrained homebuilding over an extended period. In the greater New York area, proximity to a major employment center sustains demand that outstrips what local construction has delivered. Milwaukee’s position rests on a different foundation — home prices below the national median.

New York City itself registered as balanced, with a 5.3% seller surplus.

The pricing consequence is measurable. Home-sale prices rose an average of 4.2% year over year across the six seller’s markets in July, compared with 2.3% across the 39 buyer’s markets.

Impact

For sellers in most of the country, the practical effect is longer marketing times and less pricing power.

The Aug. 12 Redfin report found that U.S. home sales fell 4.1% month over month in July on a seasonally adjusted basis, the lowest level in nearly two years. Pending sales dropped 2.5% to their weakest reading since December. New listings fell to their lowest point since October 2024.

One figure points to strain on transactions already in motion: about 14% of July’s home-sale agreements fell through, the highest share since 2023.

For buyers who can still transact, the same conditions produce leverage. Asad Khan, a senior economist at Redfin, said in the report that buyers are “dropping out faster than sellers,” leaving those who remain with more options and more room to negotiate. He pointed to the window before Labor Day as a period when motivated sellers may be willing to meet buyers partway.

Chen Zhao, Redfin’s head of economics research, framed the July slowdown in the companion sales report as a “mid-summer slump” driven by record prices, rising rates and growing financial insecurity.

Analysis

The headline invites a reading it does not fully support. A record low in buyers sounds like a market in retreat. What the underlying figures describe is closer to a market in stalemate.

Prices set a July record in the same month buyer counts hit a low. That combination is only possible because supply is not expanding to meet the demand that remains. New listings are at a nearly two-year low. Sellers who financed at pandemic-era rates have little incentive to trade into a 6.67% mortgage, so inventory that would ordinarily rotate through the market stays put.

The result is a market clearing at low volume rather than adjusting on price.

There is also a distributional dimension worth naming. A buyer’s market benefits people who can afford to buy. NAR’s record-low first-time buyer share suggests the households gaining negotiating power are disproportionately those trading existing equity, not those attempting entry. The negotiating leverage is real. It is not evenly distributed.

Whether the pattern holds through the fall depends substantially on the rate path. Realtor.com’s midyear revision cut its 2026 home price growth forecast to 1.2%, below the 3.4% inflation expectation — which would mean prices declining in real terms even as nominal figures hold. If the Federal Reserve’s posture shifts and mortgage rates ease, some sidelined demand returns and the surplus narrows. If rates move toward 7%, the buyer count likely has further to fall.

Conclusion

July’s data captured a housing market where the binding constraint has moved from supply to demand. Fewer Americans are able or willing to buy at current prices and current rates, and sellers have not reduced prices enough to close the gap.

The next meaningful test is the Fed’s September meeting and the rate response that follows it. Until then, the surplus of sellers over buyers is likely to define conditions in most of the country — with a handful of supply-constrained metros, Long Island foremost among them, continuing to operate under the opposite rules.

Key Takeaways

• The estimated number of U.S. homebuyers fell to about 966,752 in July, a record low in Redfin’s dataset, against roughly 1,462,921 sellers.
• Sellers outnumbered buyers by 51.3%, just below December’s record 51.8% gap.
• Nearly 80% of major metros — 39 of 49 analyzed — are buyer’s markets; only six are seller’s markets.
• Nassau County, New York is the strongest seller’s market in the country, with 36.2% fewer sellers than buyers.
• Miami leads buyer’s markets at 154% more sellers than buyers, followed by Nashville, Houston, San Antonio and Austin.
• Home sales fell 4.1% month over month to a nearly two-year low, while the median sale price rose to a record July level of $407,730.
• The 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 6.67% as of Aug. 13, near a one-year high.
• First-time buyers made up 21% of purchases in NAR’s 2026 survey, the lowest share since tracking began in 1981.

Sources

1. Redfin, “The Number of U.S. Homebuyers Just Dropped to a Record Low, Shifting the Market Further in Buyers’ Favor,” Aug. 13, 2026 — redfin.com
2. Redfin, “Home Sales Drop to Lowest Level in Nearly 2 Years, With Texas and Seattle Driving Decline,” Aug. 12, 2026 — prnewswire.com
3. Freddie Mac, Primary Mortgage Market Survey, week ending Aug. 13, 2026 — freddiemac.com/pmms
4. Associated Press via U.S. News, “Average 30-Year US Mortgage Rate Rises to Highest Level in a Year at 6.66%,” July 30, 2026 — usnews.com
5. National Association of Realtors, “Baby Boomers Remain Largest Share of Home Buyers as First-Time Buying Falls to Record Low,” April 15, 2026 — nar.realtor
6. Fox Business, Realtor.com midyear 2026 forecast revision — foxbusiness.com