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The U.S. housing markets where homes sell fastest — and slowest

Sellers in some metros are waiting months for an offer. Best Interest Financial found 98 days separating the fastest and slowest markets

Buyers and sellers usually crowd back into the housing market by spring, and this year both sides moved carefully instead. Mortgage rates had been easing and home price growth had been cooling, conditions that were supposed to pull people off the sidelines after a few slow years. Fighting in Iran undid both trends, driving rates higher and leaving buyers wary enough to stay home rather than tour anything. Sales volume hit a nine-month low in March while households held out for clearer economic signals. A family relocating for work or trying to unload an aging parent's house absorbs the cost of a slow market directly, either carrying two mortgage payments at once or accepting an offer well below what they expected.

The typical U.S. home now takes 66 days to sell, and sellers nationwide are sitting on roughly 3.9 months of unsold inventory, enough to get through the summer if nothing new came on the market. About 17% of listings take a price cut before a buyer commits, while 22% sell for more than the seller asked, and those two outcomes rarely show up in the same place. In some cities, buyers bid above asking within two weeks of a listing going up, because there's almost nothing else available to tour. In others, a house sits through an entire season while the seller trims the price and waits for someone willing to pay it. Steep insurance premiums and heavy property taxes weigh on some regions, as does a glut of newly built houses. Elsewhere, limited land and strong local job markets keep buyers competing for a thin set of listings.

Best Interest Financial analyzed Redfin figures from February 2026 covering the country's 100 most populous metro areas and all 50 states, mapping where sellers still hold leverage and where buyers set the terms. Jaime Dunaway-Seale, who wrote the study, found a market split more sharply than at any point on record, with 98 days separating the metro where homes move quickest from the one where they sit longest. Just nine of the 100 metros sold homes faster than they did a year earlier, and across much of the country a house now needs weeks longer to find a buyer than it did in 2025.

A house listed in Austin, Texas, takes a median of 110 days to find a buyer, the longest wait of any major metro in the country. Best Interest Financial, which tracked median days on market across the 100 largest U.S. metro areas, put the national figure at 66 days, leaving Austin sellers with an extra 44 days of waiting, closer to four months than two. That stretch costs them at the closing table. At least 30% of Austin listings sold at a reduced price, nearly double the 17% national rate, and sellers who start with an optimistic number tend to cut it once the weeks pile up without an offer.

Most of the gap comes down to supply. Austin had 5.8 months of unsold inventory in February against a national average of 3.9 months, so the homes already listed would take most of a selling season to clear even if nothing new came on the market. No state has added more new housing in recent years than Texas, and for much of that run the building kept up with the people moving in for work and for houses priced below what big coastal metros charge. Demand has since caught up with supply, and higher borrowing costs have thinned the pool of buyers who can actually close, leaving sellers to compete with one another for whoever is left.

Austin's problem runs the length of the state. All six Texas metros large enough to make the study exceed the national average for days on market, and San Antonio trails Austin by a single day at 109, which puts the two slowest-selling markets nationwide in the same state. Best Interest found 30% or more of sellers cutting their list price in Houston and Dallas as well, so concessions read as a statewide condition rather than a verdict on any one listing. Austin sellers who can't carry a house for three or four months have the option of a cash buyer or an iBuyer, closing in a couple of weeks and handing over part of the sale price for the speed.

A median list price of $321,670 puts San Antonio, Texas, roughly $137,000 under the national median of $458,710, and homes there still sit for a median of 109 days before selling, the second-longest wait of any metro Best Interest Financial studied. Affordability hasn't translated into speed, because higher mortgage rates have pushed monthly payments to the point where even a $320,000 house strains what a typical local buyer can carry. The slowdown arrived fast, with median days on market up 28 from a year earlier, the second-steepest climb among the 100 metros Best Interest tracked and two days behind Raleigh's national high.

Most of the stall traces back to supply. San Antonio carries 6.2 months of unsold inventory against 3.9 months nationally, so at February's sales pace the homes already listed would take more than half a year to clear without a single new one coming on. Builders across........

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