America's Housing Market Looks More Balanced, Until You Look at Who Is Still Shopping

New Realtor.com report finds a K-shaped market in which financially secure luxury buyers remain engaged while price-sensitive shoppers retreat

AUSTIN, Texas, Aug. 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- The share of online home-shopping traffic going to homes priced below $370,000 has fallen 11.4 percentage points since 2021, to 42.8% in 2026, according to a new Realtor.com^® report. That decline has brought buyer interest almost in line with the 42.2% share of listings in that price range, creating the appearance of a more balanced housing market, but largely because many price-sensitive shoppers have been priced out and have stopped searching.

Today's market is splitting along financial lines. At the entry level, both the supply share and shopper engagement have contracted. At the upper end, inventory and buyer engagement have remained resilient, supported by buyers with stronger purchasing power. The result is a K-shaped housing market: one path for well-capitalized buyers who remain active, and another for households increasingly sidelined by affordability constraints.

"The market is more balanced on the surface, but that balance is not the same as broad-based health," said Jiayi Xu, senior economist at Realtor.com^®. "The narrowing gap between listing share and view share at lower price points is being driven in large part by the retreat of price-sensitive shoppers, not by a meaningful restoration of their buying power."

A smaller price gap signals seller adjustment but not equal access

The difference between the median list price and the median price of homes shoppers view is a useful proxy for the mismatch between what is available and what buyers want. That gap has narrowed and stabilized since late 2025 as sellers adjusted expectations upfront. In July 2026, the national median list price was $428,950, down 2.4% from $439,450 a year earlier, while the median price across views held steady at $425,000 in both July 2025 and July 2026.

This alignment reflects a market in which sellers are pricing more realistically and the buyers who remain are more financially qualified. But the aggregate picture obscures a substantial shift in who is participating across price tiers.

Inventory has shifted upmarket as entry-level demand exits

Between 2021 and 2026, the number of homes for sale more than doubled, with growth disproportionately concentrated in mid- to upper-tier listings. On an average monthly basis, homes priced below $370,000 accounted for 50.0% of listings in 2021; by 2026, their share had declined to 42.2%.

Buyer attention shifted even more sharply. In 2021, homes below $370,000 drew 54.2% of listing views, four percentage points above their share of listings, signaling demand that outstripped supply. In 2026, their view share was 42.8%, only 0.6 percentage points above their listing share.

"In a typical supply-constrained entry-level market, fewer homes for sale would intensify competition for each listing," Xu said. "Instead, engagement with lower-priced homes has fallen to its lowest level since 2019. The data suggest that many households who would once have competed for these homes are no longer actively shopping at all."

Entry-level engagement falls below pre-pandemic levels while luxury demand holds

Views per listed property, a measure of shopper engagement and competition relative to available supply, dropped most sharply in the entry-level range and now sit below 2019 levels. The decline signals that lower-priced inventory is attracting less attention even as its share of the market has shrunk.

The upper end tells a different story. Although views per property for high-tier homes are lower in 2026 than they were during the unusually competitive 2020–2025 period, they remain in line with 2019 levels despite an expansion of higher-tier inventory. The contrast underscores the growing role of buyer financial capacity in determining who can remain active in today's market.

How the market has changed since the 2022 analysis

This analysis updates the findings in Realtor.com^®'s 2022 market mismatch report, which found that the median price of homes shoppers viewed averaged $30,000 below the median listing price from January through October 2022. The 2022 report also found that entry-level demand far exceeded available supply: homes priced from $90,000 to $310,000 generated a view share 1.2 times their listing share.

Today, the headline mismatch has narrowed, the new data point to a more concerning form of alignment: entry-level shopper demand has contracted alongside the share of lower-priced inventory, while better-capitalized buyers continue to sustain activity at the top of the market. The change is not a return to a broadly accessible market; it is a more stratified one. In fact, an earlier look at housing supply alignment to market-wide measures of incomes conducted by Realtor.com and the National Association of Realtors confirms that an effective housing shortage remains, concentrated among lower-priced homes for sale.

Methodology

This analysis examines active residential listings and online shopper views for properties listed on Realtor.com® from January 2019 through July 2026. Data are segmented into $20,000 price tiers. Annual figures are calculated as the average of monthly data from January through July of each year, ensuring consistent seasonal comparison windows.

About Realtor.com^®
For over 30 years, Realtor.com^® has connected buyers, sellers, and renters with trusted insights, professional guidance and powerful tools to help them find their perfect home. Recognized as the No. 1 real estate site REALTOR® agents recommend, Realtor.com® delivers consumer connections and a robust suite of marketing tools to support business growth. Realtor.com^® is operated by News Corp [Nasdaq: NWS, NWSA] [ASX: NWS, NWSLV] subsidiary Move, Inc.

Media Contact: Mallory Micetich, [email protected] 

SOURCE Realtor.com