The housing market is seeing its best start to home buying season in years, thanks to competitive seller pricing, according to a report from Realtor.com.
Year to date, new seller listings are up 1.4% compared to 12 months earlier, while contract signings grew 2.9% versus 2025, the home buying platform said in its latest market progress report. Both metrics are now at their highest since 2022.
For April alone, new listings increased 1.1% year over year to approximately 477,000, and signings leaped 4.5%, with the latter rising at its fastest since 2023. Compared to March, annual new-listing growth came in at the same level, while contract signings accelerated from a pace of 2.9%.
The April figures point to improved market balance with demand exceeding supply growth in some parts of the country and generating competition for existing inventory.
"For the first time in three years, we're seeing contract signing growth that genuinely outpaces the trend of the recent past," said Jake Krimmel, senior economist at Realtor.com, in a press release. "Buyers have been sidelined, but they haven't disappeared — they've simply been waiting for the right conditions."
Sellers now appear willing to come to the table with "realistic" prices at the start, leading to more signings early in the process and avoiding the patterns of cost cuts and relistings, Krimmel added.
"That supply-demand-price alignment is what separates a dynamic market from a stagnant one, and we're beginning to see it take hold in a meaningful way."
Realtor.com's findings correspond to a similar report from Redfin, which found earlier this week a pullback in the
How numbers changed by region
Through the first four months of 2026, inventory rose across the country, with the Midwest experiencing the greatest year-over-year growth in new seller listings at 4.3%. The Midwest region outpaced all others by a significant margin, with the South, Northeast and West seeing increases in listings of 1.5%, 1% and 0.9%, respectively.
Meanwhile, contract signings year to date jumped 3.9% in the West compared to the first four months of 2025, in spite of its more tepid growth in new listings. Similarly, the South saw signings increase by 3.5%, while the Midwest region experienced a 2.7% uptick. The Northeast lagged, with contract signings decreasing 1.6% on a year-over-year basis.
The early-year activity illustrates that supply alone will not move the housing market without what Realtor.com called "pricing realism." Although the numbers reveal that the impact of pent-up demand can lead to further momentum for 2026, the trends are not guaranteed to hold, Krimmel cautioned.
"May and June will be decisive," he said. Last year, a strong start to spring buying season turned south quickly, as tariff-related developments capped demand, and history may repeat itself if current geopolitical risks pressure affordability, he pointed out.
"If some resolution to Middle East uncertainty stabilizes mortgage rates and restores consumer confidence, the housing market may finally break out of the lower equilibrium it has occupied since 2022."
