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A growing number of homes sitting longer on the market has made buyers more relaxed about transacting, causing some to wait it out or even cancel contracts because they have more options.
Summertime home sales have reached their most sluggish pace in the past 10 years as homebuyers continue to battle high costs and economic uncertainty.
As of July 2025, the typical home that went under contract spent 43 days on the market, up from 35 days the year before, and the longest period for days on market for any July since 2015, Redfin reported on Monday.
Credit: Redfin
Pending sales dropped by 1.1 percent from June 2025 to July 2025 to their lowest seasonally adjusted rate since November 2023. Meanwhile, existing home sales hit their lowest level in nearly a year at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.15 million.
The increasing number of homes sitting on the market before selling is also making buyers feel less pressure to transact, which is contributing to growing inventory levels, Redfin said. Active listings in July were close to a five-year high, even though they fell 1.1 percent from June, as sellers responded to cooling demand from buyers.
“Supply is starting to fall because prospective sellers are choosing not to list after seeing their neighbor’s home linger on the market or sell for below the asking price,” Redfin Senior Economist Asad Khan said in a statement. “Some existing sellers are also pulling their homes off the market, opting instead to rent their house out or hold off on a move altogether — especially if they bought at the peak of the pandemic market and are worried about taking a loss.”
The withdrawal of some sellers from the market is also leading to an acceleration in home price growth, with the median home sale price up 1.4 percent year over year in July to $443,867 — a new median sale price record for the month of July. By contrast, home price growth at the beginning of 2025 was shrinking.
Some homebuyers are also dropping out of deals, Redfin said, because they realize there will be other options available to them if they don’t like the way a transaction is going.
About 58,000 home-purchase contracts were canceled in July, which represents about 15.3 percent of homes that went under contract that month and is the highest July rate since 2017.
The typical home sold during July also sold for about 1 percent less than its asking price, which is the largest July discount since 2020. Meanwhile, 28.9 percent of homes sold for more than their asking price, which is the lowest July share since 2019.
“It’s a weird market right now,” Redfin Premier agent Shauna Pendleton, who is based in Boise, Idaho, said in Redfin’s report. “For the most part, it’s crickets. I recently did a $100,000 price drop on my listing that had sat on the market for several weeks at over $600,000, only to lure one interested buyer. But there are also pockets of competition. I had a fixer-upper listing get seven offers after we priced it aggressively at $320,000.”
