For the third week in a row, the median price of a home actually sold in the United States came in lower than a year earlier. That's news on its own. The more useful news, and the one most sellers haven't caught up to yet, is sitting right next to it in the same report. While sale prices were slipping, asking prices were still going up.
Redfin's housing market update for the four weeks ending November 1, released on November 5, 2026, put the median sale price at $388,604, down 0.4 percent from a year earlier. That was the third straight weekly decline after roughly three years of increases, a streak that had pushed the national median as high as $409,000 over the summer. The median asking price, by contrast, rose 2 percent over the same period, to $401,860. Sellers are pricing toward a market they're hoping for. Buyers are paying based on the market that actually exists.
That split, more than any single headline, should shape how you price and position a home this month. Here's what the data shows and what it means in practice.
What the Numbers Actually Show
The spread between those two medians is roughly $13,000. It doesn't mean a typical house is selling for $13,000 under its asking price. The two medians describe different sets of homes. What the spread does reveal is direction. Seller expectations are still pointed up while the finished-sale market has tilted the other way.
The transaction-level details tell the same story, quietly. Homes sold for about 98.3 cents on each listed dollar, essentially unchanged from a year ago, which means the typical sale still closes a little below ask. In fact 21.2 percent of active listings had taken a price cut, up from 20.6 percent a year earlier, and only 23.2 percent of homes sold above their list price, the same share as before. Sellers who were counting on a bidding war are increasingly the exception.
The flip side matters too. Roughly 23 percent of homes still sold above list, which tells you the market isn't dead, just disciplined. Buyers will still stretch for a home that's priced honestly and shows well. What's changed is the penalty for overreaching. With fewer buyers in the pool, an ambitious list price doesn't get bid up the way it did a couple of years ago. It just sits.
Time on market is stretching. The median home sat for 50 days, one day longer than a year ago, and the share of homes that went under contract in under two weeks fell to 26.9 percent from 28 percent, according to Redfin. Meanwhile the buyer pool thinned sharply. Pending sales came in at 275,484, down 16.4 percent from a year earlier and the lowest reading in Redfin's weekly records going back to 2021. Pending sales fell in every major metro Redfin tracks, for the fourth week in a row. New listings pulled back as well, to 346,795, down 4.6 percent from a year earlier and the lowest level since January. Would-be sellers are choosing to wait, which means fewer fresh competitors entering right now, but also a growing pool of older listings that keep aging.
Financing is the uncomfortable backdrop, even though it has eased a little. Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey, released the same day, put the 30-year fixed-rate mortgage at 7.18 percent, down from 7.24 percent the week before and the third straight weekly decline. The 15-year fixed averaged 6.57 percent. That 30-year rate is still well above the 6.22 percent of a year earlier. Redfin calculates the median monthly mortgage payment at $2,777, a five-week low but still 11.1 percent higher than a year ago. Buyers aren't wrong to be cautious at those numbers.
What This Means If You Are Listing Right Now
First, price to closed sales, not to asking-price optimism. The 98.3 percent sale-to-list ratio is your honest anchor. Buyers and their agents are looking at what similar homes actually sold for in the last month or two, not at what other sellers hope to get. If your list price assumes the market from last spring, you're likely to sit while fresher, correctly priced listings get the showings.
Second, don't bet the timing on spring. The data doesn't promise a rebound. A market with record-low pending sales and a widening ask-to-sale gap isn't one that rewards holding out. Waiting rarely makes a cautious buyer pool more generous, and the homes that linger are the ones buyers learn to skip or lowball.
Third, if the home has been up for a few weeks, get ahead of the cut rather than chasing the market down. One in five listings has already reduced price once. Sellers who reprice early to the current market tend to sell faster and net more than sellers who cut in small, late increments while days on market climb toward that 50-day median and beyond.
Fourth, run your own local numbers before you pick a strategy. The national medians hide enormous variation. San Francisco prices rose 17.3 percent in a year while Fort Lauderdale fell 5.9 percent, Austin fell 5.8 percent, and Seattle fell 5.1 percent, according to the same Redfin data. A seller in a supply-constrained coastal market and a seller in a Sun Belt market are playing two different games.
Fifth, remember the buyer's monthly math when you weigh a concession. At 7.18 percent, the typical payment is still more than 11 percent above year-ago levels even with prices technically lower. Paying all or part of a rate buydown, or covering some closing costs, can matter more to a buyer than another point off the price, because it changes the monthly number they actually live with. A one-point buydown can shave hundreds of dollars off a payment at these loan amounts, which often outweighs taking a few thousand off a sale price. That's a give-and-take worth discussing with your agent before the first showing.
The housing market hasn't crashed. Inventory, at 4.6 months of supply, is still in the range most analysts call balanced. What has shifted is the direction of things: sale prices edging down, asking prices still drifting up, and far fewer buyers showing up to meet them. Nobody can tell you with certainty where this goes next. But the numbers we have right now are clear enough on one point. The sellers who sell this winter are the ones who price to what's actually happening, not to what they wish were happening.
