US Homebuyer Numbers Hit a Record Low as Sellers Outnumber Them by Half a Million

Redfin counted 966,752 active US homebuyers in July against 1,462,921 sellers — a 51.3% surplus, with Miami and Nashville the most lopsided metros.

The number of Americans actively shopping for a home fell to 966,752 in July 2026, the lowest reading in Redfin's series, while the number of people trying to sell held near its high at 1,462,921. That leaves 51.3% more sellers than buyers, up from 47.9% in June and within half a point of the record 51.8% gap set in December 2025. Buyers left the market at 2.5% month on month; sellers barely moved, down 0.3%.

Where the imbalance is widest

Of the 49 metropolitan areas Redfin classified in the report published on 13 August, 39 were buyer's markets and just six favoured sellers, with the remainder balanced. Miami showed the largest surplus at 154% — roughly two and a half sellers for every buyer — and the gap there widened from 134% in June. Nashville followed at 150.8% (from 135%), then Houston at 129.8% (from 114%), San Antonio at 116.3% and Austin at 111.9%. Four of the five sit in the Sun Belt, the region that absorbed the largest share of pandemic-era in-migration and the largest share of the apartment and single-family construction that followed it.

The six markets still tilted to sellers

The exceptions cluster in the Northeast and upper Midwest. Nassau County, New York, had 36.2% fewer sellers than buyers; Newark was at −20.7%, Providence at −16.7%, Milwaukee at −15.1%, New Brunswick at −12.9% and Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, at −12.8%. These are supply-constrained older suburbs where new construction has been limited for years. The contrast between them and Texas or Florida is the sharpest single division in the US market right now, and it is a supply story rather than a demand one.

What a buyer surplus does to price

"Buyers are dropping out faster than sellers, giving the buyers who remain more options and negotiating power," said Asad Khan, senior economist at Redfin. The pricing consequence is already visible where the surplus is largest. Glopra's market data puts Miami at $5,802 per square metre with prices 3.15% lower than a year earlier, against a US national average of $2,454 per square metre and a national annual change of +2.0% as of the 23 July snapshot. The metros with the biggest seller surpluses are, in other words, the ones already recording falling prices, while the national figure stays marginally positive.

The caveats worth holding on to

A record-low buyer count is not a collapse in demand. Redfin measures people actively searching, a population that is highly sensitive to mortgage costs and can rebuild quickly if borrowing gets cheaper — the 30-year fixed rate averaged 6.67% on 13 August, close to an 11-month high. Valuation risk also runs on a longer clock than transaction counts: Miami scores 75 on the 0–100 bubble-risk scale in Glopra's data, in the elevated band and well above the US national 57, which reflects stretch accumulated before this year rather than the current soft patch. Income has held up better than capital values in both places, with gross rental yields of 6.84% in Miami and 6.71% nationally, before the 10.66% effective rental tax rate applied to the standardised non-resident case.

Sources: Redfin https://www.redfin.com/news/buyers-vs-sellers-july-2026/; The Epoch Times https://www.theepochtimes.com/business/us-housing-market-moves-further-in-buyers-territory-as-demand-hit-record-low-report-6074859

Market data: United States · Miami