Pending home sales fell 3.5% from the prior week to 299,126, the lowest level Redfin has recorded in nearly three years, the company reported on September 17. The count is also down 5.4% from a year earlier, covering the four weeks ending September 13. Seattle posted the steepest metro-level decline Redfin tracked, with pending sales down 20.3% from a year ago.
What a slower contract count leaves out: Redfin tracks how fast contracts sign, not what a property-tax bill does meanwhile, a gap The Senior Property Tax & Home-Cost Relief Kit addresses directly. See the five kinds of relief available while a home sits unsold →
A Weekly Drop To A Three-Year Low
Redfin’s September 17 housing market update put pending home sales at 299,126 for the four weeks ending September 13, a 3.5% drop from the prior week and the lowest level the company has recorded in nearly three years. The reading is also down 5.4% from the same period a year earlier, according to Redfin, extending a slowdown that has now stretched across multiple weekly reports rather than showing up as a single soft week. Redfin’s own framing, that the level is the lowest in nearly three years, places the current reading below every comparable week going back to roughly the fall of 2023, when the housing market was working through a very different set of mortgage-rate and inventory conditions.
Seattle’s Steeper Regional Decline
Among the metro areas Redfin tracks, Seattle recorded the largest year-over-year drop in pending sales, down 20.3% from a year earlier, according to the same update. That decline is roughly four times the 5.4% national figure, indicating the slowdown is landing unevenly across the country even as the overall national count sets a new multi-year low. Redfin’s report does not attribute the Seattle-specific drop to a single local factor. A decline of that size in one metro can still pull down a national weekly figure meaningfully if that metro is large enough, though Redfin’s 5.4% national figure reflects the blended result across all the metros it tracks, not Seattle’s decline in isolation.
Why Redfin Measures Pending Sales Separately From Closed Sales
Pending sales count homes under contract but not yet closed, which makes the figure a leading indicator of where closed-sale totals are headed in the following month or two, ahead of the National Association of Realtors’ own monthly Pending Home Sales Index, which “generally leads Existing-Home Sales by a month or two” because it also counts signed contracts rather than closings, according to NAR. Redfin’s weekly cadence, updated every week rather than once a month, is what lets the company describe 299,126 as a three-year low within days of the underlying week ending, rather than waiting for a monthly cycle to catch up. NAR’s own August index, released the same week as Redfin’s update, ticked up 0.3% from July even as it stood 4.7% and 2.2% below year-earlier levels on NAR’s two comparison measures, a smaller monthly move than the 3.5% weekly drop Redfin recorded, illustrating how the two trackers’ different methodologies and release schedules can show slowdowns of different severity in the same general period without contradicting each other.
What Redfin’s Portland Agent Sees In The Slower Pace
Meme Loggins, a Redfin Premier agent in Portland, Oregon, told the company that “house hunters who can afford it should be taking advantage of today’s slow market,” adding that once mortgage rates move below 6%, “I’m willing to bet inventory will be depleted in no time.” Her comment frames the current pace as a temporary window from a buyer’s-market perspective, one she expects to close once rates fall further and long-held inventory clears. That expectation, that today’s slower pace of signings will not last indefinitely, is one Portland-based agent’s read of local conditions rather than a Redfin-wide forecast, and the company’s own report stops short of predicting when or whether mortgage rates will move below 6%.
Mortgage Rates Sitting Just Above 6.75%
Redfin’s update also reported a daily average mortgage rate of 7.24% as of September 16 and a weekly average of 6.76% for the week ending September 10, rates that remain a central reason buyers have pulled back even as median home prices held roughly flat, rising 2% year over year to $397,633. New listings, meanwhile, rose 1.5% from a year earlier to 363,298, meaning more homes reached the market even as fewer buyers moved to sign a contract on one of them. The combination of a mortgage rate above 7% and a growing supply of listings is consistent with the pattern Redfin’s data shows nationally: more homes available, fewer buyers able or willing to commit to one at current borrowing costs, and a pending-sales count that keeps sliding as a result. Redfin’s report does not say when it expects that combination to shift, leaving the current pace as the best available read of the market rather than a forecast for how long it will last.
What A Slower Contract Pace Means For A Seller On A Timeline
For an older homeowner counting on a sale to fund a move into assisted living, a smaller home or closer to family, a three-year-low pace of pending sales means a listing may sit longer before a buyer commits, extending the period a seller carries property-tax, insurance and utility payments on a home no longer meeting their needs. Redfin’s own count, the lowest in nearly three years by its measure, is the clearest evidence yet that sellers on any kind of deadline should plan for a longer runway between listing and closing than the market offered a year ago. That longer runway applies whether the sale is funding a move to assisted living, a relocation near family or simply a smaller, easier-to-maintain home.
What A Cooling Contract Count Leaves Unbudgeted
Redfin’s weekly count of pending sales describes how quickly buyers are signing contracts, not what carrying a listed home longer costs its owner in taxes, insurance and utilities. A slower pace of signings, the lowest in nearly three years by Redfin’s count, means more sellers are holding those costs for longer before a deal closes.
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This article was produced with AI assistance and checked against the primary sources linked above.
Warren Cohen is a finance writer based in Phoenix, Arizona, covering personal finance topics including credit, banking, and beginner investing. He earned his degree in business administration from Arizona State University and began his career working in consumer finance, where he gained direct experience with lending and credit systems. He now writes for personal finance websites and fintech platforms, focusing on clear, practical content that helps readers make informed financial decisions.
