10 things to know about the property market: July 2026

IRVINE, Calif., July 30, 2026 - Cotality, a leading property information, analytics, and data-driven solutions provider, has released its latest market update.

For the first time in four years, home sales increased during the spring season. Despite elevated mortgage rates, tight inventory, and affordability challenges, buyers returned to the market. This renewal of interest is, however, uneven. Regional divides in rents, home prices, mortgage performance, and home equity continue to favor some American cities while presenting challenges to others. Here are the 10 most important developments shaping the property market today.

Housing Market Trends

1. Home price growth accelerates. National home prices increased 0.8% year over year in May, up from 0.6% in April, marking the fourth consecutive month of acceleration. However, appreciation remains concentrated in affordable Midwestern markets and select high-equity coastal markets, reflecting growing divides in affordability, wealth, and inventory conditions.

1. Regional home price gaps are narrowing. As supply balances across regions, the gap between the nation's strongest and weakest housing markets has fallen to near-record lows compared with a year ago. Some formerly weak markets, including Austin, Texas, and Cape Coral, Florida, are showing signs of stabilization, while inventory-constrained Midwestern markets continue to post outsized gains.

1. Condos and townhomes affordability erodes. Prices for single-family detached homes (up 1% year over year) continue to outperform attached units (down 0.7% year over year). Rising HOA dues; higher cash reserve and insurance requirements; and tighter conventional lending standards for condominium projects are increasing ownership costs and constraining buyer demand.

1. Home sales sprang up this spring for the first time since 2022. People signed 4% more home contracts in March, April, and May than they did during the same time last year. More home sales means that inventory levels have tightened, with active listings down more than 5% from a year earlier. However, the number of new listings, the median list price, and median days on market were all unchanged from 2025. It also continues to be a buyers' market. Homebuyers are getting an average discount of 4.1%, and the share of sales closing under asking price rose 2 percentage points to 70%.

1. San Francisco bucks national trends thanks to the AI boom. Homes are spending fewer days on the market in this tech hub, and sellers are earning a premium on home sales that is 2 percentage points higher than in 2025. This stands in contrast to other highly competitive housing markets such as New York, Boston, Washington, D.C., Minneapolis, and San Jose, where average contract price premiums declined. Median days on market also declined slightly in San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston to 36, 28, and 27 days, respectively. Spring inventory in the New York metro was significantly tighter than last year, reducing median days on market from 45 to 41. The Washington, D.C. metro, which was highly competitive just a few years ago, saw days on market rise to 39, up 6 days from last year and 11 days from Spring 2024.

1. Spring leasing season lifted single-family rents. Annual single-family rent growth remained modest, but rents increased 2.2% from February to May, outpacing the same period in each of the prior two years. Rental demand may also be improving. Many markets with year-over-year rent declines posted notable spring gains. North Port, Florida, illustrates the trend: rents were down 2.9% from a year earlier but increased 2.8% during the spring 2026, well above spring gains in each of the past three years.

Mortgage Market Trends

1. The share of seriously delinquent mortgages (90 days-past-due or more) slightly increased to 1.14% in spring 2026 from the spring of last year. The serious delinquency rates for Federal Housing Administration (FHA), U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and conventional loans were 5.69%, 2.13%, and 0.67%, respectively. Conventional loan delinquency rates remained stable, while the rate for VA loans declined by 19 basis points. Notably, the serious delinquency rate for FHA loans increased by 199 basis points year-over-year.

1. Home equity lending edged up. Lenders originated more than 191,000 home equity loans totaling $11.04 billion and authorized 419,250 HELOCs totaling $71.8 billion. Compared with spring 2025, HELOC counts increased 2% and volume rose 1%, while home equity loan counts slipped 1% even as total volume grew 4%.

1. Pre-pandemic homeowners have accumulated substantially more wealth than post-pandemic buyers. According to Cotality's Home Equity Report, purchases made in 2020 have an average of $256,000 in equity, which is $86,000 more than the $170,000 held by purchases made in 2022. This wealth differential is poised to deepen. The lasting ramifications of the Great Recession illustrate this. Borrowers who bought in 2003 still have $80,000 more equity than those who purchased in 2006. Further, pre-2022 buyers had the ability to refinance at record-low mortgage rates, meaning that they pay less interest each month in addition to accumulating more wealth in their homes.

1. Mega investors appear to be waiting on the sidelines. After the idea of an investor ban was first floated in January, Cotality data showed that investor activity retracted almost immediately. They still haven't returned. Mega investors made an average 7,800 single family purchases per month in the first half of 2025, but they have not made more than 5,000 purchases in any month of 2026. Now that 21st Century ROAD to Housing act has becomes law, the third quarter will be the moment of truth; have institutional investors left the housing market for good, or were they just waiting for regulatory certainty?

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Tracking the relationship between days on market and price premiums

Data source: Cotality, 2026

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About Cotality

Cotality accelerates data, insights, and workflows across the property ecosystem to enable industry professionals to surpass their ambitions and impact society. With billions of real-time data signals across the life cycle of a property, we unearth hidden risks and transformative opportunities for agents, lenders, carriers, and innovators. Get to know us at  https://www.cotality.com.  

Media Contact

Charity Head 

Cotality 

[email protected]

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