Real Estate Market 2026: Mortgage Rates and Spring Housing Outlook

Explore the 2026 housing market trends where home buyers face rising listings and stable mortgage rates. Despite longer marketing times, financial data suggests a steady spring season with price volatility.

While homes are taking even more time to market– the typical home offered in January invested 63 days on the marketplace, a full week longer than this time around in 2014– customers “are a lot more serious than they were a couple of months back; they’re checking out every listing and meticulously contrasting the benefits and drawbacks of each one,” observed Connie Durnal, a Redfin Premier agent in Dallas.

Impact of Market Uncertainty on Buyers

That uncertainty might also “remain to hold sellers and purchasers back,” Sturtevant noted, and will certainly “be an essential factor in rate trajectory, bring about rate volatility and most likely higher prices in the weeks in advance.”

Acquisition applications dropped 4% week-over-week in a sign that “customers are reacting to growing uncertainty,” Sturtevant said. Yet purchase applications were still 18% higher than this time in 2015, indicating that “potential buyers continue to be active at the start of 2026,” according to Kan

National Real Estate Price Recovery

Recent financial information suggests the situation is beginning to get better. Real estate price improved for the ninth consecutive month in November, according to First American, with tape-recorded gains in 47 of the 50 major metros examined.

With several major U.S. markets favoring customers, home buyers “have the ability to take their time and be picky since there are a lot of listings,” Durnal said, including that sellers who must move “need to be sensible.”

. Purchasers terminated home acquisition agreements at a record rate last month– and pending sales also dropped 1.6% for the 4 weeks ending Jan. 25, according to Redfin data. However new listings raised 0.8%, noting the first increase given that November as buyer demand enhances.

Mortgage Rate Projections for Spring

That does not mean we’ll see rates in the 7% range anytime soon, according to Mike Fratantoni, Home Loan Bankers Association (MBA) SVP and primary financial expert. Fratantoni prepares for that home loan prices will stay around 6-6.5% “for the near future,” which will consequently “assistance sustain a rather stronger springtime real estate market than in 2014, yet not a breakout year.”

Though mortgage prices held relatively steady through the first month of 2026, the destiny of the spring homebuying season might depend on whether that fad of improving affordability proceeds– and on just how the economic situation and customers react to other problems encountering the nation.