Sellers taking homes off the market at fastest pace in nearly a decade

(NewsNation) — Buyers finally have leverage in the housing market, but good luck getting homeowners to bite on a low offer.

Nearly 85,000 sellers yanked their homes off the market in September — up 28 percent from a year earlier and the highest level for that month in eight years, according to a new Redfin analysis.

Sellers are pulling listings amid weak demand, with many homes sitting unsold for months. In September, 70 percent of listings had been on the market for at least 60 days, and the typical delisted home had been on the market for 100 days, Redfin found.

The surge in delistings is a major reason prices haven’t fallen, even with more homes for sale and still-weak demand, conditions that normally pull prices down.

“Many homes have a sticker price higher than buyers are willing to pay, but many sellers are unwilling to negotiate,” Asad Khan, senior economist at Redfin, said in the report.

The reluctance to negotiate comes at a time when there are roughly half a million more sellers than buyers — a sharp turn from the COVID-19 pandemic market when owners called the shots and buyers were throwing elbows in bidding wars.

The disconnect between expectations and reality appears to be widest among those who bought recently. Nearly half of September’s delistings (47 percent) came from owners who purchased within the last five years.

“Many homeowners who bought during the pandemic demand frenzy still expect sky-high prices,” Khan said. “They remember a seller’s market, so they’re hesitant to yield to buyers who want to negotiate the price down and/or ask for concessions.”

Those who bought between 2020 and 2022 are also more likely to be sitting on ultra-low mortgage rates, making it even harder to walk away.

But the so-called lock-in effect is starting to ease — and in some markets, the standoff between buyers and sellers is finally relieving price pressures, particularly in the Sun Belt.

The share of stale listings, homes sitting for at least 60 days, was highest in Texas and Florida, led by Miami (85 percent), Fort Lauderdale, Fla. (85 percent) and Austin, Texas (83 percent) — with San Antonio (81 percent) and Dallas (77 percent) also near the top of the list.

Fort Lauderdale, San Antonio and Dallas have all seen the typical sale price come down from a year ago, while prices in Miami remain flat, Redfin data shows.

Nationwide, home prices ticked up 1.3 percent year over year in September, according to the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index, the weakest growth since mid-2023.

Redfin counted a home as “delisted” if it went off the market for more than 31 days without selling or going under contract as “pending” or “contingent.”