Realtors' September existing-home sales report lands Oct. 13 as 30-year rates hit 7.40%

The National Association of Realtors will publish its September existing-home sales report at 10 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, October 13, 2026. The monthly release counts sales of existing homes and reports median prices and inventory alongside them.

The release arrives as borrowing costs climb. Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the 30-year fixed-rate average at 7.40% on October 8, up from 7.28% the week before. A year earlier, the same average was 6.30%.

What the Monthly Sales Count Is Built From

NAR's monthly sales figure rests on a representative sample of 210 Boards and multiple listing services. The raw data is split into four census regions: Northeast, South, Midwest and West. NAR economists review the raw sales volume and remove records affected by jurisdiction changes, vendor or staff changes, non-responding associations or erroneous data.

The cleaned regional totals are then weighted, and the weights are benchmarked every ten years to reflect shifts in regional demand. The result is a non-seasonally adjusted volume, which NAR converts into a seasonally adjusted annual rate.

The annual rate is the total sales that would result if a month's relative pace were maintained for 12 consecutive months. NAR uses the X-13 variant created by the Census Bureau to remove normal seasonal swings, so that one month can be compared with another.

Coverage is broader than single-family houses. NAR's data page says condos and co-ops are included alongside single-family homes, with separate series for each type and figures for the four regions. The seasonal factors and rates are revised each year with the February release of revised final December data, covering the past three years.

Why Median Prices Are Read Differently From Sales Pace

NAR computes median prices monthly for the nation and for its four regions. Unlike the sales pace, median prices are not seasonally adjusted. NAR's methodology page says seasonal variation is hard to measure, and changes in home size and characteristics have a larger effect. Selected metro areas are reported quarterly.

The July median existing-home price was $434,100, up 2.0% from $425,700 a year earlier. NAR counted it as the 37th consecutive month of year-over-year gains. Single-family homes had a median of $440,300, up 1.9%, while condos and co-ops had a median of $371,800, up 2.2%.

The NAR data page lists an average price series separately from the median and does not explain how the two series relate.

NAR's methodology page lists months' supply of inventory among the series revised each year with its seasonal adjustments. That page does not explain how inventory or months' supply is calculated, so the article reports them as published.

Where July Left the Market

The July report, released August 11, showed existing-home sales at a 4.06 million seasonally adjusted annual rate. That was down 1.7% from June and up 0.7% from July 2025. Single-family sales fell 1.9% from June to 3.69 million, while condo and co-op sales were unchanged at 370,000.

Regional sales were uneven. The Northeast recorded 500,000 at an annual rate, up 2.0% from June. The Midwest recorded 970,000, down 2.0%. The South recorded 1.86 million, down 3.1%, and the West recorded 730,000, unchanged.

Regional median prices ranged from $342,900 in the Midwest to $622,200 in the West. The Northeast had the largest year-over-year gain, at 5.2%, to a median of $563,800. The West's median rose 0.2%, the smallest gain in the regional table.

First-time buyers accounted for 29% of July sales, down from 33% in June and up from 28% a year earlier. Cash sales were 26%, and individual investors or second-home buyers 14%. Median days on market rose to 29 from 28 in June and from 28 a year earlier.

NAR's Housing Affordability Index rose to 103.3 from 98.3 a year earlier, and affordability improved year over year in every region. Year-to-date sales were up 2.4%, according to Yun's comments in the release.

Inventory Rose Into August

Inventory stood at 1.54 million units in July. That was down 1.9% from June and 0.6% below July 2025. The months' supply was 4.6, unchanged from June and from a year earlier.

NAR's existing-home sales data page gives later figures for August: 1.62 million homes and a 4.9-month supply. Yun said that at the current sales pace, months' supply had grown to 4.9 months, its highest level in over ten years.

The same page reports August existing-home sales of 3.98 million, down 2.0%, and says sales for the first eight months of 2026 were up 1.6%. It gives no August median price.

Measured from July, inventory was about 5% higher in August, and the months' supply was 0.3 months higher. Yun describes months' supply as the number of months it would take to exhaust the total inventory at the current sales pace. The August figures are taken from the data page.

Rates Against the July Baseline

NAR's July release cites Freddie Mac's July average of 6.54% for the 30-year fixed rate, up from 6.49% in June and down from 6.72% a year earlier. The reading dated October 8 was 7.40%. By October 8, the 30-year average sat 0.86 percentage points above its July level.

The October 8 figure was up 0.12 points from the prior week's 7.28% and 1.10 points from the 6.30% a year earlier. The 15-year average was 6.73% on October 8, up 0.13 points from 6.60% the prior week and 1.20 points from 5.53% a year earlier.

Freddie Mac's page does not explain why the rates moved. It gives the prior week's average without a date and advises borrowers to keep shopping around as market conditions evolve.

In the July release, Yun said the market would be thriving if average mortgage rates were to return near 6%. Yun also said home sales had been remarkably stable even amid the rising mortgage rate environment of the past few months.

What the Sources Leave Open

NAR's 2026 schedule lists the September existing-home sales release for Tuesday, October 13, the September Pending Home Sales Index for Tuesday, October 20, and third-quarter metro home prices for Thursday, October 29. All releases are at 10 a.m. Eastern.

The NAR pages read for this article do not define a sale as a closed transaction, so the article does not state one. The methodology page also does not describe how inventory or months' supply is calculated.

The August data on NAR's data page includes no median price, so the article's price figures run through July.

On the Freddie Mac side, the page shows no reading for September 24 and no table of weekly rates. It links to a download of rates since 1971 and a historical data archive instead. The 7.28% figure carries no date on the page, so its October 1 date is inferred from the page's reference to the previous week.