Agents say they’re starting to strike a balance

The U.S. housing market doesn’t gain momentum until 2026, but real estate agents say there’s a real shift toward a more balanced market, according to CNBC’s quarterly housing market survey.

Mortgage rates haven’t moved much at all in the last quarter of 2025, but home prices have been steadily declining. The average interest rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage fell sharply in the third quarter but then stabilized between 6.2% and 6.4% during the fourth quarter, leaving some buyers on the sidelines with no incentive to jump in.

And now, there are early signs of what could be more activity to come.

“The buyers I saw were buying because of life circumstances, whether it was having a child, moving for a job, retiring or downsizing,” said Ashley Romage, a real estate agent in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Among real estate agents surveyed by CNBC in the fourth quarter, 37.5% said it was a balanced market, not the buyer’s market they reported seeing in the third quarter. That’s up from 30% as of the third quarter, likely because consumers are becoming less confident in the economy as job losses mount.

“The people who were moving and the momentum we had has definitely slowed, much less because of interest rates than more fundamental factors, like the cost of living,” said Heather Deal, a real estate agent in Detroit. “Homeowners insurance, auto insurance, utilities and medical insurance are the top objections I hear when a buyer talks about purchasing.”

The CNBC Housing Market Survey is a national survey of randomly selected real estate agents across the United States. Responses to the Q4 survey were collected between December 10 and 17. This quarter, 72 agents shared their views.

While the majority of agents said it is still a buyer’s market due to lower prices and increased inventory for sale, some agents noted that buyers and sellers have very different expectations.

“Buyers tend to think the market is like 2008 and sellers tend to think the market is more like 2021 and 2022, and these are diametrically opposed markets and diametrically opposed mentalities,” said John Fragola, a real estate agent in Charleston, South Carolina.

Of course, 2008 was the beginning of the subprime mortgage crisis, which led to the Great Recession and the housing market crash, when the market was flooded with distressed housing, giving buyers all the power. Meanwhile, 2021 came shortly after the start of the Covid pandemic, when there was a buying frenzy and inventory dropped to record lows, giving sellers all the power.

It is likely that the market will be balanced now due to the decline in prices.

More agents, 92%, reported that at least one seller lowered their prices in the fourth quarter, compared to 89% in the previous quarter, according to a CNBC poll. Nearly half of survey respondents said the majority of sellers had reduced prices.

“Franchises have gotten bigger, especially in my market,” Romage said. “At the beginning of the year, unfortunately, a lot of sellers were still stuck in a 2021 mindset, but as the year went on and their listings finished, they had to get more comfortable understanding the fact that they were probably going to have to make some compromises to get the deal done.”

While prices are falling, they are still historically high, but buyers seem to be getting used to this as the new normal.

When asked how affordability affected buyers, agents said fewer buyers left the market in the fourth quarter than in the previous period, and fewer late purchases. They also didn’t compromise much on things like the home’s size, features, and location.

However, lowering prices is not palatable to sellers, and more agents reported having to write off properties than in the third quarter.

“I’ve personally had some clients who said, ‘Let’s stop and hit the brakes here and we’ll come back to the spring market when there are more buyers,'” Fragola said.

As for the new year, despite the slow end to 2025, 67.8% of agents said they expect sales to improve in the first quarter. 77% of agents said they expect all of 2026 to be better than last year.

There is more inventory on the market now, and some agents said they believe consumers are starting to get used to the current economic conditions.

“I think a lot of people feel more comfortable with the unknown,” Romage said. “Sentiments have shifted from concern to cautious optimism.”