House hunting? Here's what to know as the spring buying season arrives.
House hunting? Here's what to know as the spring buying season arrives.
Mary CunninghamFri, March 6, 2026 at 10:27 PM UTC
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Aspiring home buyers can look forward to a modestly more favorable real estate market heading into the spring house-hunting season.
Although home prices remain historically elevated, purchase costs are growing more slowly. According to Redfin data, median home prices in January rose at an annual rate of 1.1%, down from 4.1% a year ago.
"Conditions are better because the mortgage rates are lower and home prices went up slower than wages in the last year, which should be giving homebuyers more purchasing power and more confidence," Daryl Fairweather, chief economist at Redfin, told CBS News.
People in the market for a home could also see more listings this spring, according to economists.
Where are mortgage rates headed?
While mortgage rates ticked back up to 6% this week due to inflation fears linked to the Iran war, that's considerably lower than the March 2025 rate of 6.6%.
That may be as good as it gets. Experts think home prices are likely to remain sticky heading into spring and that mortgage rates might not swing much below 6%.
"I feel like it's more likely that [mortgage rates] will level off than they will continue to slide," Fairweather said.
The average median sales price for a home in the U.S. was $405,300 in the fourth quarter of 2025, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Prices are about 2% lower than they were compared to the same time last year, according to Realtor.com.
"This market may be easier for some buyers, but it's really going to depend on that real estate thing of location, location, location," Kate Wood, a lending expert at NerdWallet, told CBS News.
Inventory loosening up
One sign the housing market is loosening is an increasing ratio of sellers to buyers. Sellers now outnumber buyers by about 600,000, up from 444,000 in January of 2025, according to a February report from Redfin.
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An increase in the number of properties for sale gives house-hunters more options to choose from, as well as some leverage when it comes to negotiating.
Still, experts note that inventory remains tight, with years of underbuilding leaving a shortage of affordable homes. The U.S. has roughly 15% fewer homes for sale today than in 2019, according to Housing Wire.
That comes as the number of new listings slows and houses sit on the market for longer. In February, new listings decreased 6.1% from a year ago, Redfin data shows.
"Inventory is improving, but it's generally going from worse to bad," Wood told CBS News.
2026 home price forecast for 100 largest cities (Symbol map)
Joel Berner, a senior economist at Realtor.com, said inventory is most limited in the Midwest and Northeast, regions that still haven't fully recovered from the post-pandemic buying frenzy. Properties are more widely available in the South and West.
"What's happening is the inventory is actually higher [in those regions] than it was pre-pandemic levels, and so there are a lot of options there, and prices are falling," Berner said.
Cities that experienced the largest growth in new inventory last month include San Jose, California; Seattle, Washington; and Portland, Oregon, according to Redfin.
Jason Waugh, president of Coldwell Banker, said he expects the combination of lower interest rates and stabilizing inventory to contribute to modest sales growth and a more affordable market.
"My opinion has always been [buy] when you can afford to," he said. "It doesn't really matter the time of year, seasonality or overall market conditions."
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