Lower Mortgage Rates Push Sellers Off the Sidelines—but Slow Sales Keep Pressure on Prices

Home sellers are getting a boost with lower mortgage rates pushing owners off the sidelines and ready to test the market before year end.

The housing market continues to rebalance as lower mortgage rates and slower sales shape both supply and pricing dynamics heading into year-end, according to the Realtor.com® Housing Market Trends report.

This comes as mortgage interest rates inched higher to 6.26% for a 30-year fixed mortgage for the week ending Nov. 20, according to Freddie Mac. That's up from 6.24% the week prior. But to put it in perspective, rates are still lower than this time last year when a 30-year fixed mortgage averaged 6.84%.

With rates closer to the 6% mark, sellers have been encouraged to try and test the market heading into the holiday season.

"These slightly lower rates seem to have given the market late-season boost," says Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com®. "We also saw existing home sales rise in October, further indication that both sellers and buyers are coming off the sidelines late in the year."

The drawback is that new listings are competing with the inventory already sitting on the market. The report reveals this is good news for buyers who have more options to choose from and have the negotiating power that they haven't had in awhile.

For sellers, they're going to have to adjust expectations and possibly pricing.

This puts urgency on policymakers to address affordability and, as the report says, "whether fundamentally new mortgage products would help."

This week's numbers

Active inventory has climbed 12.6% year over year—stretching the streak of annual gains past the two-year mark. There were about 1.1 million homes for sale last week in the U.S. This is the 29th-straight week of over a million listings.

The amount of homes for sale is growing because of new listings hitting the market, but also because homes are taking longer to sell.

New listings rose 1.7% on an annual basis. New listings are a measure of sellers putting homes for sale. The increase marks the second straight week of gains an a return to "typical" levels after a surge last week.

Between active inventory and new listings, there isn't much movement. Homes spent three days longer on the market than a year ago, but the report states that has "sped up in the past several weeks."

The median time on the market was 64 days this week, which is about the same amount of time it took to sell a home during the pandemic. This has lead to more sellers cutting their asking prices with the hopes to close a deal before the year is over.

As far as the median list price, it's dropped compared to the same week one year prior. The national median list price stands at $424,200, which is higher than a year ago. The price per square foot fell 1.0% year-over-year, dropping for the 11th consecutive week.

"It's usual that this time of year is slower. When you add in the affordability crush of 6% rates plus the lock-in effect that just won't go away, we are not surprised 2025 is still a slow sales year," Krimmel says. "The good news is we are getting a small tailwind to close the year out, which may bring some momentum into the spring 2026 homebuying season. However, a lot can change between now and then!"