Sellers Slash Prices at Historic Pace To Lure Buyers Sidelined by Mortgage Rates

Surging mortgage rates chilled the housing market in September, forcing sellers to slash prices at historic levels to revive slipping demand. Nationally, the share of listings with price cuts reached 20.8%, up 0.9 percentage points year over year, exceeding 2025 levels for the first time in 2026, according to the latest Realtor.com® monthly housing market trends report. This marks the highest September price-reduction rate since 2018 and the highest overall for any month since October 2022.This surge in price cuts aligns with broader housing market shifts, including accelerating inventory growth and plunging pending sales. Simply put, as mortgage rates topping 7% push would-be buyers to the sidelines, leaving homes to pile up on the market, motivated sellers are willing to capitulate on price just to get to the closing table. "A lot of the people selling right now have to sell rather than simply choosing to sell—because of a job relocation, divorce, debt, or another life event—so they have to meet buyers where they are," Russell Faucette, principal broker and co-founder of Omada Real Estate in Salt Lake City, tells Realtor.com.According to the data, this trend is national in scope:...