Have you ever put your house on the market, waited weeks for the right offer, and then—just when winter rolls around—decided “you know what, forget it”? Turns out you’re far from alone right now. In fact, more homeowners than ever are doing exactly that, and the numbers are honestly kind of staggering.
October 2025 (reported with the usual one-month delay) saw home delistings skyrocket. We’re talking a 45.5% increase year-to-date and almost 38% higher than the same month last year. That makes 2025 officially the worst year for keeping a home listed since records began in 2022. And this isn’t just a blip—delistings have stayed painfully high for five straight months.
The Great 2025 Pullback Is Actually Happening
Something fascinating is unfolding in the housing market right now. The typical late-fall slowdown? It’s arriving months early and hitting much harder than anyone expected. Roughly 6% of active listings are disappearing every single month—an exodus we usually only see in the dead of winter when everyone is too busy with holidays to think about moving.
In my view, this isn’t just seasonal laziness. This feels like exhaustion. Sellers who jumped in with sky-high expectations earlier in the year are now staring at mortgage rates that refuse to drop meaningfully, buyers who keep lowballing, and the very real possibility of carrying two mortgages through the holidays. Pulling the plug starts to look pretty reasonable.
Where Are All the Frustrated Sellers Concentrated?
The pain is definitely not evenly distributed. The cities that enjoyed the wildest price run-ups during the pandemic years are now ground zero for seller surrender.
- Miami leads the pack—tons of new luxury inventory and buyers suddenly realizing they can get similar sunshine somewhere cheaper.
- Denver, where the mountain-views premium seems to have hit its ceiling.
- Houston, with its flood of new construction finally catching up to demand.
These markets saw the biggest gap between new listings coming on and homes quietly vanishing off again. It’s almost poetic: the hotter the pandemic boom, the louder the 2025 thud.
Meanwhile, Buyers Are Voting With Their Feet
While some sellers give up entirely, a growing wave of buyers is simply… leaving. They’re heading to what the industry now calls refuge markets—mid-sized cities where prices never went completely insane and where your money still stretches pretty far.
Think Grand Rapids, Michigan. Or St. Louis, Missouri. Cleveland, Milwaukee, Pittsburgh—these places are seeing actual price gains right now (5%+ year-over-year in some cases) while coastal metros stagnate or slip. And get this: even with those gains, the typical home in these cities is still 20-30% below the national median. That’s the kind of math that makes people pack a U-Haul.
“Rising delistings and the growth of refuge markets capture the push and pull defining today’s housing market. Higher rates and years of rapid price growth have rewritten the rules for both buyers and sellers.”
— Chief Economist at a major real estate data platform
I couldn’t agree more. The pandemic housing frenzy created two very different Americas, and right now the affordable one is winning.
Canceled Contracts Are the Silent Killer
It’s not just listings disappearing—it’s deals dying after they’re supposedly locked in. Roughly 15% of signed contracts fell apart in October, up from last year and well above anything we saw pre-pandemic.
In some Sun Belt cities the numbers are almost comical (in a dark way). San Antonio? One in five deals collapsed. Fort Lauderdale, Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Jacksonville—all hovering around 19-21%. High costs plus economic jitters equals cold feet on a massive scale.
Imagine finally getting an offer after months on market, jumping through the inspection and appraisal hoops, and then—poof—the buyer backs out because rates ticked up another eighth or they suddenly worry about job security. Brutal.
The Price Picture: Finally Some Breathing Room?
Nationally, the median list price actually dipped 0.4% year-over-year in November. That’s the first annual decline in forever, even if it’s tiny. Compared to November 2019 though? We’re still up a stomach-churning 36%. Progress, but we’ve got a long way to go before anyone calls this affordable again.
New listings are barely trickling in—up just 1.7% year-over-year. Inventory is growing, but mostly because homes are sitting longer, not because builders and sellers are suddenly flooding the market. It’s growth through stagnation, which is better than nothing, I suppose.
What Happens Next in 2026?
Most economists I follow expect gradual improvement next year. Lower mortgage rates (maybe into the high 5s by spring?), more realistic sellers, and builders finally delivering homes at a decent clip could start balancing things out.
But gradual is the keyword. Nobody’s predicting a crash, and nobody’s predicting a sudden return to 2021 madness either. More like a slow exhale after holding our breath for five years.
In the meantime, if you’re a seller in a former hot market, the writing might be on the wall: price it right the first time or prepare to join the delisting parade. If you’re a buyer, the refuge cities are calling—and they actually have inventory right now.
Personally? I’ve never seen the housing market this bifurcated. The gap between the “pandemic winners” and everyone else keeps widening, and 2025 feels like the year that gap finally started biting back. Whether you’re thinking of buying, selling, or just watching from the sidelines, one thing feels certain—this strange chapter isn’t over yet.
So tell me in the comments: is your local market feeling the surrender wave, or are you in one of those refuge cities suddenly getting all the attention? I’d love to hear what’s happening on the ground where you are.
