The U.S. housing market is showing signs of rebalancing, with a CNBC Housing Market Survey revealing that 44% of real estate agents now report a balanced playing field between buyers and sellers—a significant increase from previous quarters. This shift is accompanied by a dramatic drop in price cuts and changes in buyer priorities, as mortgage rates and prices overshadow broader economic concerns. Despite increased balance, agent optimism for future sales remains subdued due to persistently high mortgage rates.
After several years characterized by a tight and expensive housing market, real estate agents across the United States are increasingly observing a move towards equilibrium. Findings from CNBC's latest Housing Market Survey indicate a notable shift, with 44% of agents in the second quarter of the year reporting a balanced market between buyers and sellers. This figure marks a substantial increase from just 30% recorded in the third quarter of last year, when CNBC initiated its quarterly survey.
As Jeremy Kane, a real estate agent with EXP Realty in Denver, remarked, "It certainly feels like, depending on the home, depending on the neighborhood, depending on the condition and the price point, that both the buyer and the seller do have a little bit of leverage."
The CNBC Housing Market Survey gathers insights from real estate agents nationwide, selected through a random process. The most recent data for the second-quarter survey was collected between June 23 and June 30, with 53 agents contributing their perspectives.
Recent market activity supports this trend towards balance. Home sales in May experienced a modest 3% rise compared to the same period last year, a development attributed to an increase in market supply and a moderation in prices. Sellers appear to be adopting a more pragmatic approach to pricing their properties, tempering the expectations of rapid appreciation seen during the initial two years of the pandemic.
Bruce Jones, an agent with Compass in Nashville, Tennessee, noted, "No one really seems to be fighting me much on price like they used to. We're not really seeing huge decreases in prices. We've kind of plateaued, but I don't see people arguing too much about that. If it's priced correctly, it is moving."
A significant indicator of this rebalancing is the dramatic reduction in price cuts. The CNBC second-quarter survey found that 57% of agents reported at least one price cut to active listings, a stark contrast to the 89% reported in the third quarter of 2025 (likely a typo in the original article, implying a previous survey). While home prices, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller national home price index, are still slightly less than 1% higher year-over-year, sellers are increasingly aligning their asking prices with current market realities, leading to fewer necessary reductions.
Data from Realtor.com reinforces this trend, showing that asking prices in June were down 2.5% year over year—the largest annual drop since their tracking began in 2017 and the eighth consecutive month of declines.
Martha Thorn, an agent with Coldwell Banker in Tampa, Florida, emphasized the importance of correct pricing: "I always tell sellers that I'm in the business of selling homes, not storing them, and so you really need to put a property at the right price in order to get it sold."
This improved alignment between asking prices and market conditions has also contributed to a decrease in contract cancellations. Only 40% of respondents in CNBC's survey reported at least one contract fall through in the second quarter, down from 51% in the first quarter of this year.
Regarding buyer concerns, mortgage rates and prices have now surpassed the broader economy as the primary worries, according to agents surveyed in the second quarter. Conversely, concerns over inventory levels have notably diminished. While the "Iran war" had sparked significant worry in March, that anxiety has largely receded. The percentage of agents citing mortgage rates as their buyers' biggest concern jumped from 26% at the end of last year to 37% this quarter.
Mortgage rates experienced a decline after last summer, hitting a low of 5.99% for the 30-year fixed rate in late February, according to Mortgage News Daily. However, they subsequently spiked in early March following geopolitical events. The average 30-year fixed mortgage rate peaked at 6.75% on May 19 and has since stabilized around the 6.6% mark.
Inventory levels also show improvement, with June seeing a nearly 2% increase from the previous year and new listings rising by 2.4%, according to Realtor.com. Although the market remains somewhat lean, it is significantly better than a few years ago. Currently, there are 1.1 million homes listed for sale, a substantial increase from approximately 614,000 at the same time in 2023, just after the intense pandemic-driven housing boom.
Despite these signs of rebalancing, agents' overall optimism about future sales has waned, according to the CNBC survey. Only 19% of respondents in the second quarter anticipate an improvement in sales in the near future, a sharp drop from 48% in the third quarter of last year. The majority of agents, 67%, now expect sales to remain largely unchanged.
Persistently high mortgage rates are widely seen as the main factor dampening optimism. While the national market trends towards balance, local variations can be significant. Joel Eronko of Nicholas Joel Realty Group in Houston highlights this, stating, "The challenge isn't a lack of buyers, it's a psychology gap. My focus this quarter is keeping clients focused on real-time, hyper-local data rather than national economic headlines."
