Is the housing market slowing down?

Where the housing market is actually slowing down

Across 764 metro areas, about 309,884 homes sold in the most recent window against 324,300 in the same months a year earlier — down 4%. Of the 475 metros where the year-to-year change is large enough to be distinguishable from ordinary variation, 64 are selling fewer homes than last year and 9 more.

309,884

Homes sold

across 764 metros

324,300

Same months last year

▼ 4%

Metros selling fewer

of 475 we can call

▼ 3%

Typical metro

median of all metros

Sales volume is the number the monthly housing headlines quote, and it is almost always quoted as one national figure. It is the count of homes that actually changed hands — not what they cost, and not how many are sitting on the market. It answers a different question from price: a market can hold its prices steady while the number of people able to transact quietly falls.

The national number is doing a lot of averaging. 64 metro areas are selling measurably fewer homes than a year ago and 9 are selling more, with 402 metros genuinely unchanged. Those are not degrees of the same weather.

Now the part most versions of this statistic leave out. We will not name a direction for 289 of these metro areas, and they are excluded from every count above. 278 are simply too small: below about sixty sales a window, a difference of a dozen houses reads as a double-digit percentage swing, and a dozen houses is what a couple of delayed closings look like. The other 11 show a step change in their sales count partway through the record that neighbouring metros do not share — the signature of the source redrawing what the metro covers rather than of a market moving. Those metros still have pages; the pages report the count and say why the trend is not measurable.

Every comparison here is to the SAME calendar months a year earlier. Home sales roughly double between January and May across most of the country, so a month-over-month reading measures the season, not the market.

Source: Redfin's published market data, through May 2026. Neighborhood Numbers is an independent data publisher and is not affiliated with Redfin.

The metros where sales fell the most

Ranked by the year-over-year change in homes sold, smallest first. Only metros large enough for the change to be distinguishable from ordinary variation appear here.

Metro area	Homes sold	Same months last year	Change
Wheeling, WV	75	123	▼ 39%
Burlington, NC	183	277	▼ 34%
Mount Vernon, OH	66	98	▼ 33%
Jamestown, NY	63	91	▼ 31%
Glens Falls, NY	78	112	▼ 30%
Valdosta, GA	148	211	▼ 30%
Staunton, VA	138	190	▼ 27%
Muskegon, MI	171	233	▼ 27%
Johnstown, PA	71	96	▼ 26%
Rochester, NY	651	880	▼ 26%
Lawton, OK	112	151	▼ 26%
Cumberland, MD	72	97	▼ 26%
Hinesville, GA	114	151	▼ 25%
Pottsville, PA	125	165	▼ 24%
Laconia, NH	75	99	▼ 24%
Manitowoc, WI	75	99	▼ 24%
Beaumont, TX	274	359	▼ 24%
Moses Lake, WA	70	91	▼ 23%
Spartanburg, SC	598	775	▼ 23%
Greeley, CO	509	658	▼ 23%
Anniston, AL	87	112	▼ 22%
Madera, CA	101	130	▼ 22%
Bay City, MI	82	105	▼ 22%
Detroit, MI	1,441	1,839	▼ 22%
Warrensburg, MO	71	90	▼ 21%
Vineland, NJ	109	138	▼ 21%
Yuma, AZ	142	178	▼ 20%
Whitewater, WI	124	155	▼ 20%
New Castle, PA	60	75	▼ 20%
Ogden, UT	643	802	▼ 20%

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Source: Redfin's published market data, through May 2026. Neighborhood Numbers is an independent data publisher and is not affiliated with Redfin.