You're about to sit down with a seller who still has last year's number in their head, and the data you bring to that meeting matters more than the script you use. According to Realtor.com's Economic Research team, the median listing price nationally was $419,250 in September 2026, down about 1.4 percent from a year earlier. That's a small move, but it's the kind of detail that changes how a pricing conversation should go, because it means the comps your seller remembers from last fall are already a little stale.
The supply side backs up the same story. Realtor.com's research shows active listings nationally reached roughly 1,162,000 in September 2026, up about 5.4 percent year over year, while new listings coming onto the market actually slipped about 0.7 percent over the same period. Translate that for your seller: more homes are sitting on the market competing for buyers, even though fewer new listings are showing up each month to refresh the pool. That combination tends to reward sellers who price close to current value from day one and punish sellers who chase last year's number and cut later.
Days on Market Has Not Bailed Anyone Out
You might expect that much supply to slow everything down, but Realtor.com's data put median days on market at 61 in September 2026, about one day faster than the same month last year. In other words, well priced listings are still moving at roughly the same pace they did a year ago. That is a useful number to bring into the room, because it undercuts the seller instinct to list high and see what happens. The homes selling inside that 61 day window are mostly the ones priced to where this month's data says they should be, not where last September's data said they should be.
None of this means you should promise a buyer side rush or a seller side bidding war. It means you have a specific, sourced reason to open the pricing conversation with this month's numbers instead of general feel. If a seller pushes back with but my neighbor got a certain number last spring, you now have something concrete to put next to that memory: listing prices are down slightly from a year ago, supply is up, and the homes that are still moving in about two months are priced to today's market, not last year's.
This is also a good moment to revisit your own pipeline. If you have a listing that has been sitting past 61 days, that is not necessarily a market problem, it is a pricing conversation you have not had yet. Pull the comps again, bring the current numbers, and have that talk sooner rather than later. Waiting rarely makes the conversation easier.
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