Home Sellers Outnumber Buyers by 62.6% in September, the Widest Gap in Redfin Records Since 2013
Redfin estimates 1.51 million US home sellers chased just 928,892 buyers in September, a 62.6% surplus and a fourth straight monthly record, with 41 of 50 big metros now buyer's markets.
A buyer's market with no buyers
The US housing market has never looked like this in Redfin's data. An estimated 1,510,784 sellers were chasing just 928,892 active buyers in September, a surplus of 62.6 percent and the widest gap in records going back to 2013.
It is the fourth record-breaking month in a row. The gap was 56.9 percent in August and 48.5 percent back in June.
The buyer side is the problem. Estimated buyers fell 2.4 percent in September, a fifth straight monthly decline, to the fewest Redfin has ever counted. Sellers, meanwhile, rose 1.2 percent to the highest level since March 2020.
The map is nearly all blue
Redfin classifies 41 of the 50 largest metros as buyer's markets, the most in its records. The extremes are in the Sun Belt, led by Miami, Nashville and Houston, plus a cluster of Texas metros.
Only five metros still qualify as seller's markets, including San Francisco and a few in the Northeast.
The activity data is just as soft. Pending home sales are sitting near a 12-year low, and the share of deals being cancelled is the highest since the first months of the pandemic.
Power without affordability
Redfin's economists are blunt about the irony: buyers who can afford to transact have more negotiating power than at any point since the post-2008 crash, because so many competitors have been priced out or scared off by economic uncertainty.
With mortgage rates averaging around 7.4 percent, the surplus of listings is not converting into sales. Sellers have the inventory problem. Buyers have the math problem.
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Options market and stocks to watch
Homebuilders are the front line. XHB captures the sector, with LEN and DHI the liquid names where put flow tends to build when demand data deteriorates.
RKT now owns Redfin itself, and its mortgage origination volume lives or dies on transaction counts, which are still falling despite the listing surplus.
The swing factor is rates. A real move down in mortgage rates is the one catalyst that could pull sidelined buyers back in, so watch call flow in builders after weak inflation or labor prints. Until then, a record seller surplus with record-low buyer counts is a grind-lower setup for housing activity. Follow housing data and flow on the Unusual Whales news feed.
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