Weekly Real Estate News
Summary
Redfin's weekly housing-market data shows pending home sales fell 3.5% week over week during the four weeks ending Sept. 13, reaching their lowest level in nearly three years. The high-frequency Redfin measure is separate from the National Association of Realtors' monthly Pending Home Sales Index.
Pending U.S. home sales fell 3.5% from the prior week during the four weeks ending Sept. 13, reaching their lowest level in nearly three years, according to a new Redfin market update released Thursday.
The brokerage’s high-frequency data add another sign that buyers are retreating as borrowing costs climb, even though the shoppers who remain in the market have more inventory and negotiating leverage than they did during the pandemic-era housing frenzy.
Redfin’s measure is not the National Association of Realtors’ monthly Pending Home Sales Index and the two datasets should not be treated as interchangeable. Redfin’s report uses its own weekly market data and covers the four-week period ending Sept. 13.
Demand weakens while inventory remains elevated
New listings slipped 0.5% from the prior week but remained 1.5% above the same period a year earlier, Redfin reported. The company also said the market continues to contain hundreds of thousands more sellers than buyers.
That imbalance is giving active buyers more room to negotiate, but it is not necessarily translating into stronger transaction volume. Higher mortgage rates raise the monthly payment associated with the same home price, while many existing owners remain reluctant to trade lower-rate mortgages for substantially more expensive financing.
The latest weekly reading arrives alongside a sharp move higher in mortgage rates. Freddie Mac’s Primary Mortgage Market Survey put the average 30-year fixed rate at 6.95% for the week of Sept. 17, up from 6.76% a week earlier. WRE News is covering that rate move separately rather than conflating the two datasets.
A market with more choice but fewer commitments
The combination is increasingly defining the fall housing market: more homes are available than during the extreme inventory shortage, yet financing costs continue to limit the number of buyers able or willing to move forward.
For agents and sellers, that can mean longer decision cycles, more price sensitivity and greater pressure to compete on condition, concessions and pricing. For buyers who can absorb current financing costs, weaker competition can create opportunities that were unavailable when listings routinely drew multiple offers.
But negotiating leverage does not erase affordability math. A buyer may win a lower purchase price or seller concession and still face a substantially higher monthly payment if mortgage rates rise enough.
Why the weekly signal matters
Weekly housing data are noisy and should not be treated as a substitute for monthly government or industry benchmarks. Their value is speed: they can show changes in buyer and seller behavior before slower datasets fully capture a turning point.
Thursday’s Redfin reading therefore fits into a broader set of indicators rather than standing alone. Builder confidence has weakened, mortgage rates have moved higher and August residential construction data showed a split between a rebound in single-family starts and declining permits.
The next question is whether the pending-sales decline proves temporary or persists as the market moves deeper into the seasonally slower fall period. If rates remain elevated, sellers may have to compete harder for a smaller pool of payment-qualified buyers even as available inventory gives those buyers more options.
Redfin’s Sept. 17 market update contains the company’s weekly pending-sales and listing figures.
