The typical U.S. home sold for $389,601 in the four weeks ending Oct. 25, down 0.1% from a year earlier, Redfin said Oct. 29. The brokerage calls it the first annual drop in the median sale price in more than three years. The dip is small, but it arrives with the number of pending sales at the lowest level in Redfin’s records.
Redfin’s figure is a median, the midpoint of every sale in the period, so half of the homes sold for more and half for less. A 0.1% decline works out to roughly $390 on a price near $390,000, which is why the report treats it as a turning point in direction and not a collapse. The median had not dipped below its year-earlier level in more than three years before this reading.
For anyone who owns a home, the question is whether a flat national number says anything about the house they live in. It does not set a value for any single property, because prices are set street by street and Redfin’s median blends every market in the country. What it does show is that buyers are no longer pushing the national price up, which matters to anyone weighing a sale, a move to a smaller home or a loan against their equity this winter.
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Why are so few homes changing hands?
Redfin counted 276,352 pending sales in the four weeks, down 15.9% from a year earlier and down 1.8% from the week before. The brokerage says that is the lowest level in its records. Fewer signed contracts mean fewer closings in the weeks ahead, and the median price is built from the homes that do close.
Sellers are pulling back too. New listings totaled 352,421, down 4% from a year earlier and the lowest since January, according to Redfin. Active listings stood at 1,510,619, up 2.2% from a year ago, which gives the market 4.5 months of supply, up from 4 months. Median days on market was 50.
More homes for sale and fewer buyers to take them is the usual setup for slower price growth. Redfin’s data show both halves of that setup at once: months of supply rising from 4 to 4.5, and pending sales down nearly 16% from last year. The report does not say how long the pattern will last, and it makes no call on where the median goes from here.
What is a 7% mortgage rate doing to monthly payments?
Redfin put the weekly average mortgage rate at 7.32%, down from 7.4% a week earlier but still near a three-year high. At that rate the median monthly mortgage payment came to $2,786, up 10.7% from a year ago, the report says. A price that is flat while the payment climbs more than 10% is the squeeze behind the slow sales.
Freddie Mac’s weekly survey shows the same direction. Its 30-year fixed average was 7.24% on Oct. 29, down from 7.32% the week before and up from 6.17% a year earlier. The 15-year average was 6.60%.
The National Association of Realtors saw rates bite in September. Its chief economist, Lawrence Yun, said in the group’s Oct. 13 existing-home sales report that “further increases in mortgage rates in recent weeks mean fewer buyers can qualify to purchase a home.”
Is this a turning point or one four-week reading?
Different yardsticks tell different stories. NAR’s September report put the median existing-home price at $417,500, up 1.3% from $412,300 a year earlier, on sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.99 million. Inventory was 1.60 million homes, a 4.8-month supply.
The gap between NAR’s $417,500 and Redfin’s $389,601 comes from what each one counts. NAR measures closed sales for a full calendar month, while Redfin tracks a rolling four-week window that ends Oct. 25. Redfin’s headline is that its own series turned negative; NAR’s September number was still higher than a year before.
Neither report offers a forecast for where prices go next. Redfin’s release describes what happened in the four weeks and leaves the outlook open, so a single reading this small is better treated as a signal to watch than a trend to bank on.
What does a flat price change for a homeowner’s equity?
Equity is the part of a home’s value that the owner holds free of the mortgage, and it moves with the sale price in the owner’s own neighborhood. A national median that is down 0.1% does not take any equity away from a household. It does mean that anyone counting on steady price gains to fund a move, a loan or retirement spending has less cushion to lean on than in recent years.
Owners who are thinking of selling face a market where buyers have fewer contracts in hand and more homes to choose from than a year ago. Owners who are staying put face the same monthly bills as before, whatever the median does. Retirees and near-retirees often hold most of their wealth in the house, so even a small change in the direction of prices gets attention. The reading that counts for them is local, though, and a county or neighborhood can run well ahead of or behind the national median in any given month.
Either way, the numbers that decide the next move are the household’s own: the loan balance, the rate on it and what comparable homes nearby actually sold for.
Is your home equity part of your retirement plan?
Redfin’s numbers show prices going flat while payments rise 10.7% and pending sales hit a record low. A retirement plan that counts on the house to keep gaining value, or on a quick sale at a certain price, is exposed to exactly that kind of turn.
Cut Your House Costs is an 11-page guide with home equity options compared side by side, from a HELOC to a reverse mortgage, and a home-cost audit worksheet for adding up what the house costs each year. It also covers a lower home insurance bill by shopping and asking for every discount.
Get the home equity comparison and the home-cost audit worksheet →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the 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.
