7 major US cities are now officially ‘buyer’s markets’ — despite delistings continuing to rise
Summer ended with a standoff between reluctant buyers and frustrated sellers—but this fall, house hunters can be a bit more optimistic as seven of the 50 biggest metros become buyer’s markets.
The national housing market reached a balance of five months of supply—the first summer to do so since Realtor.com® began tracking this data nine years ago, according to the August 2025 Monthly Housing Market Trends report.
What does that mean in simple terms? The months of supply metric represents how many months it would take for all the for-sale homes on the market (including pending listings) to be sold at the current sales pace.
The higher the months of supply, the slower the market—and the more negotiating power buyers have.
To determine the months of supply, economists used the most recently available June sales data from the Realtor.com public records database, including both existing-home and new-home sales, along with multiple list services (MLS) sales figures where available.
The rule of thumb is that it is a seller’s market if supply dips below four months. If supply reaches four to six months, it’s a balanced market. And above six months of supply points to a buyer’s market.
With a five months’ supply reported nationally in June, the US housing market has reached a state of equilibrium.
“This represents the highest summer reading since Realtor.com began collecting data in 2016, signaling a shift toward more buyer-friendly conditions as we head into the fall,” says Realtor.com Chief Economist Danielle Hale.
But a closer look at this handy metric at the metro level tells a more nuanced story.
Of the top 50 US metros, seven had at least six months of supply in June, putting them squarely in the buyer’s market category.
A further 23 metros were classified as balanced markets between four and six months’ supply, and the remaining 20 had less than four months’ supply, rendering them decidedly more seller friendly.
Top US buyer’s markets revealed
Three metros stood out for having the nation’s highest months of supply in June, pushing them into the buyer’s market column—where house hunters have the most leverage, though not always equally across every segment of real estate.
Miami
Miami topped the list, boasting 9.7 months’ supply. In other words, it would take close to 10 months to sell all of the city’s listings at the current pace.
In June, when the supply data was collected, the median list price in Miami was $510,000, down 4.7% from the previous year.
The city’s inventory surged 35% compared with the same period in 2024, and the typical home waited for a buyer 15 days longer than the previous year.
For context, in August, the median listing price in Miami edged down to $500,000 and the typical listing lingered on the market 16 days longer year over year, the nation’s second-biggest slowdown signaling a softening market.
Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel says Miami’s relative buyer friendliness is not new to this summer, since the metro has had over six months’ supply since October 2023, but it reached a new benchmark in June, solidifying its status as a buyer’s market based on the supply data.
However, when you zoom in on the sprawling metro’s housing market, a narrative more complex than the months-of-supply data alone might suggest emerges.
Miami’s two housing markets
Ana Bozovic, a Miami-based real estate agent and founder of Analytics Miami, argues that while certain segments of the city’s real estate may offer buyers more negotiating room and leverage, especially older condos under $500,000, Miami as a whole is not a “buyer’s market” in the broader sense of the term when factors beyond supply are taken into account.
“It’s more accurate to say the market is moving toward balance, which is healthy after the post-COVID surge,” Bozovic tells Realtor.com.
Bozovic explains that the Miami market has “very different realities” across price points and types of for-sale homes.
“To get leverage in negotiations, a buyer needs to recognize this and to be very well versed in the dynamics of the segment they are investing in,” she says.
Krimmel largely agrees with that take, reminding that the months-of-supply metric is simply the total inventory in a market divided by the number of sales in that market for a given month.
When inventory increases and the pace of sales slows in a place like Miami, “buyers, on average, gain some negotiating leverage that they would not otherwise have,” he says.
On the other hand, sellers can dig in their heels and delist their properties to reclaim some leverage from buyers, which is what happened this summer in Miami, as well as in Phoenix and Riverside, CA.
Heading into the fall market, Bozovic suggests that buyers be aware that “Miami is not a monolith,” and that they should prepare for different market conditions depending on what they’re looking to purchase.
“Single-family homes under $500K, so buyers in that category have little to no leverage,” the agent says. “By contrast, buyers in the sub-$500K condo segment may find more negotiating room, in part because new condo reserve requirements have increased supply. Know your segment.”
Austin, TX
Austin, TX, ranked second with 7.7 months’ supply, as buyer demand has softened in the pandemic-era boomtown while the total number of for-sale homes skyrocketed.
In June, the Texas metro saw the third-highest share of listings with price cuts, at nearly 33%, as its median listing price decreased by 4.5% to $524,950.
In other words, roughly a third of all for-sale homes in Austin came with a discount.
Austin also registered the second-greatest inventory increase compared to its pre-pandemic levels, at nearly 70%, trailing only Denver.
By August, the typical house in Austin was priced at just under $500,000, down 4.8% from a year ago, and close to 30% of all listings across the metro came with price reductions.
Krimmel notes that Austin is a newcomer to the buyer’s market category, with its supply surpassing the six-month mark only this last June.
Another major Sunshine State metro, Orlando, notched the third-highest months of supply in the US at 6.9. This aligns with housing data coming out of the city best known as the home of Disney World in June, when the median listing price in Orlando decreased by 3.4% to $429,473.
At the same time, the metro’s for-sale inventory jumped nearly 34% year over year as the sales pace stalled.
Two months later, the median price fell even more to $422,694 as the typical listed property stayed on the market 14 days longer than in August 2024, marking the fourth-biggest market slowdown across the top 50 metros.
Notably, Orlando has been a buyer’s market since January, ever since its supply surpassed six months.
“The markets in Miami, Austin, and Orlando have been moving in a buyer-friendly direction for some time now,” notes Krimmel. “Inventory levels, time on market, and price reductions are all up significantly in those metros, as well as much of the South and West.”
Looking ahead, the economist says he expects these trends to continue, noting that “fall is typically a good time for prospective buyers with inventory lingering and other buyers dropping out of the market.”
Four other metros earned the distinction of having elevated months of supply, including New York City (6.7), Jacksonville, FL (6.3), Tampa, FL (6.3), and Riverside (6.1), landing them in buyer’s market field.
While New York‘s classification as a buyer’s market may come as a surprise considering that the pricey metro is located in the Northeast, where supply is traditionally low and demand is high, Krimmel stresses that there are metrics that indicate “some softness” beneath the surface, especially compared with other markets in the region.
For starters, the Big Apple is one of the only Northeast metros consistently categorized on the cooler side according to the Realtor.com monthly market hotness index.
Secondly, says Krimmel, list prices have been relatively flat in the metro so far this year, yet list price per square foot has been down 4% to 5% year over year in recent months, suggesting that the market is not as tight as may appear at first glance.
Delistings continue climbing as sellers withdraw
This summer saw the US housing market largely grind to a halt, with the national median listing price in August holding steady at at $429,990, same as a year ago.
Sellers struggled to attract buyers grappling with ongoing affordability challenges and still-high mortgage interest rates, with some resorting to price cuts and others choosing to withdraw from the market altogether.
In August, more than 1 in 4 for-sale homes in the US came with a price reduction, up 1.1 percentage points from last year, and down slightly since last month.
Buyers in the South and West were most likely to encounter listings with discounts, with Denver, Portland, OR, and Jacksonville boasting the highest shares of for-sale properties with price reductions.
At the same time, a growing number of sellers grew frustrated with the sagging buyer demand, and instead of slashing their prices, they opted to remove their listings and wait for better conditions.
In July (the latest month for which delisting data is available) delistings nationwide jumped 57% year over year, up from 48% in June.
On the metro level, Miami, Phoenix, Riverside, and Tucson, AZ, saw the most delisitings among the top US markets.