Zillow's June Market Report shows sales rebounding and new listings rising, even as inventory growth nearly stalls
Home sales in the United States rose 5.9% above year-ago levels in June, reversing a May decline. The jump signals that easing mortgage costs are translating into actual transactions, though a near-stall in inventory growth tempers the outlook. Both findings come from Zillow's June Market Report.
Zillow's preliminary nowcast counted 381,125 homes sold in June, up 9.2% from May. The cost of carrying a typical mortgage fell alongside the sales uptick: the monthly payment on a median US home dropped to $1,884, a 2.5% decline from a year ago, based on a 20% down payment and excluding taxes and insurance, per Zillow's data.
Freddie Mac's Primary Mortgage Market Survey placed the 30-year fixed rate at 6.43% as of July 2, a seven-week low and 24 basis points below the same week last year, when it averaged 6.67%.
"The market wrestled with some uncertainty throughout the spring shopping season, but mortgage rates declining from their mid-spring peak has added some extra heat as we head into an already toasty summer," said Mischa Fisher, chief economist at Zillow.
"While the divergence in sale price is notably 'k-shaped,' affordability gains did continue in June."
Mortgage application volume held essentially flat in the week ending June 26, inching up just 0.04% on a seasonally adjusted basis, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey.https://t.co/h4K8lX93Kl
— Mortgage Professional America Magazine (@MPAMagazineUS) July 3, 2026
Rates ease but inventory growth slows to a crawl
The sales rebound arrived alongside a stark deceleration in supply. Active inventory of 1.39 million homes grew just 0.9% above last year's levels in June, the smallest annual gain since December 2023, according to Zillow.
That reading marks a significant slowdown from a sustained run of stronger increases that had raised expectations of a more substantial supply recovery.
Read more: High mortgage rates to keep US housing market subdued through 2026
New for-sale listings reached 403,811 in June, up 3% from a year ago and reversing May's annual decline, a sign, Zillow noted, that the shopping season retains some momentum.
The typical US home value held at $372,057, up 1.1% annually and 0.7% from May alone.
Homes took a median of 20 days to go pending, unchanged from a year ago.
A market splitting by price tier
Not all segments are moving in the same direction. Lower-priced homes led both new listing activity growth and sales in June, the first time since 2022 that the entry-level tier has driven listing momentum, according to Zillow.
That shift has direct implications for brokers with first-time buyer clients, where supply had been most restricted.
As US housing affordability climbs, regional conditions vary considerably, and brokers in markets with recovering inventory have more room to move clients off the fence.
Newly pending listings — homes transitioning from for-sale to contract — rose 7.6% from a year earlier, though they dipped 1.5% from May.
Some 25.8% of all listings carried a price cut during the month, down from 26.6% a year ago. The share of homes sold above list price stood at 30.3% in May, the most recently available data, compared with 31.1% a year earlier.
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