Frustrated Home Sellers Refuse To Find Common Ground With Buyers
Existing house sales are grim enough that an unusually large percentage of sellers are giving up and pulling their listings, according to Realtor.com.
The year-over-year growth of delistings is big, surging by almost 38% in October, which was higher than inventory growth. Year-to-date, delistings were up about 45%. Typically, this trend starts in October and peaks in the winter during a natural market slowdown. This year, meanwhile, it started in June and hasn't stopped.
The odd factor is that inventory has climbed for the 25th straight month, up 12.6% year-over-year, although growth is slowing. In November, there were more than a million houses for sale for the 7th consecutive month. And yet, national inventory remains 11.7% below the typical 2017 to 2019 levels.
Under basic economic theory, increased supply should mean lower prices to attract buyers. While they have fallen, it's only by a small 0.4% year-over-year. Census Bureau data shows that the median sales price of houses in Q2 2025 was $410,800 and $414,500, which is about a 1% difference. However, that is still 29.5% higher than the median in Q2 2020 and above the CPI inflation of 25% over the same period. Houses are now on the market three days longer than in 2024.
Real individual median personal income was $43,010 in 2020 and $45,140 in 2024, an increase of about 5%, meaning there's fewer people with enough wealth to match the growth of median house prices. That might be the economic twist. Inventory, while up, remains historically low; not enough people can afford current house costs, and many sellers want a price that isn’t broadly sustainable across the potential market size.
“With buyers and sellers far apart, the sellers’ solution is to pull that trump card and delist, rather than cut prices,” said Realtor Senior Economist Jake Krimmel in prepared remarks.
As Realtor shows, even as inventory was up, pending home sales — listings under contract — were down 1% year-over-year.
The factors do vary by geographic region. Of the top 50 metros, 16 are at least 25% below their pre-pandemic inventory norms. Another 10 exceed their pre-pandemic inventories by 25% or more and they are all in the South or West.
November inventory in the West was 3.1% over pre-pandemic norms. In the South, they were 5.7% above. In contrast, the Midwest was 32.9% below and the Northeast was 48.4% below.
Source: GlobeSt/ALM