Agents say starting to balance out

The U.S. housing market has yet to pick up steam into 2026, but real estate agents say there’s been a real shift toward a more balanced market, according to the quarterly CNBC Housing Market Survey.

Mortgage rates didn’t move much at all in the last quarter of 2025, but home prices are steadily easing. The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage dropped sharply in the third quarter but then stabilized between 6.2% and 6.4% during the fourth quarter, leaving some buyers on the sidelines with no incentive to jump in.

Now, there are early signs of what could be more activity ahead.

“The buyers I have seen have been buying because of life circumstances, whether it’s having a baby or moving for a job or retiring or downsizing,” said Ashley Rummage, a real estate agent in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Of the real estate agents surveyed by CNBC in the fourth quarter, 37.5% said it was a balanced market, rather than the buyer’s market they reported seeing in the third quarter. That is up from 30% as of the third quarter and is likely because consumers became less confident in the economy as job losses grew. 

“The people who had been moving and the momentum that we had were definitely slowed down, far, far less by interest rates than the intrinsic factors, the cost of living,” said Heather Dell, a real estate agent in Detroit. “Homeowners insurance, car insurance and utilities and medical insurance are the top objections that I hear when a buyer talks about buying.”

The CNBC Housing Market Survey is a national inquiry of real estate agents selected randomly across the United States. Responses for the fourth-quarter survey were collected between Dec. 10 and Dec. 17. This quarter, 72 agents shared their insights.

While the majority of agents said it is still a buyer’s market due to easing prices and more inventory for sale, some agents noted that their buyers and sellers still have very different expectations.

“Buyers tend to think that the market is like 2008 and sellers tend to think that the market is closer to 2021, 2022, and those are diametrically opposed markets and diametrically opposed mindsets,” said John Fragola, a real estate agent in Charleston, South Carolina. 

Of course, 2008 was the start of the subprime mortgage crisis, which led to the Great Recession and housing crash, when the market was flooded with distressed homes, giving buyers all the power. Meanwhile, 2021 came shortly after the start of the Covid pandemic, when there was a buying frenzy and inventory dropped to record lows, giving sellers all the power.

The balance in the market now is likely coming due to easing prices.

More agents, 92%, reported having at least one seller cut their price in the fourth quarter, compared with 89% in the previous quarter, according to CNBC’s survey. Nearly half of respondents said the majority of their sellers cut prices. 

“Concessions have gotten bigger, especially in my market,” Rummage said. “At the beginning of the year, unfortunately, a lot of sellers were still stuck in the 2021 mindset, but as the year has gone by and their listings sat, they had to get more comfortable with understanding the fact that they were probably going to have to offer some concessions to get the transaction done.”

While prices are easing, they are still historically high, but buyers appear to be getting used to that as the new normal.

When asked how affordability is impacting their buyers, agents said fewer buyers left the market in the fourth quarter than in the prior period, and fewer delayed purchases. They also compromised less on things like home size, features and location.

Cutting prices, however, is not all that palatable to sellers, and more agents reported they had to delist properties than during the third quarter.

“I personally had some clients who said, ‘Let’s just pause, pump the brakes here and we’ll come back on in the spring market when there’s more buyers out,”‘ said Fragola. 

As for the new year, despite the slow end to 2025, 67.8% of agents said they expected sales to improve in the first quarter. Fully 77% of agents said they expect the full year 2026 to be better than last year. 

There is more inventory on the market now, and some agents said they think consumers are getting used to current economic conditions.

“I think a lot of people are feeling a little bit more comfortable with the unknown,” Rummage said. “Sentiment has shifted from anxiety to cautious optimism.”