Delistings jump nearly 50% as sellers fail to find buyers for their homes

After failing to find a buyer at the price they think they deserve, more home sellers are pulling their listings off the market altogether.

Delistings jumped 47% nationally in May from a year earlier, in a sign that sellers would increasingly rather wait than negotiate, according to the Realtor.com® economic research team’s latest monthly housing trends report. Year to date, delistings are up 35% from the same period in 2024.

The increase is partly due to the overall expansion in active inventory, which was up 28% in June from a year earlier. Newly listed homes increased 8.8% from a year ago, but remained flat over the past two months.

Still, delistings are outpacing new listings, with 13 homes delisted in May for every 100 homes hitting the market—up from 10 in the spring of 2024 and 2023, and just six in 2022.

The increase in delistings follows a surge in price reductions, as some sellers with unrealistic price expectations faced a softer market with limited buyers.

Now, it seems that some sellers would rather wait out the market than accept a lower price for their home.

“Unlike past housing cycles where falling prices pressured underwater homeowners to sell, today’s homeowners benefit from record-high levels of home equity, so they have the flexibility to wait it out,” says Realtor.com senior economist Jake Krimmel. “This allows many sellers to withdraw their homes from the market if their asking price isn’t met.”

The trend is especially noticeable in the South and West, where inventory has surged back above pre-pandemic levels, and prices are flat or falling.

Phoenix led the nation in delistings in May, with 30 homes pulled from the market for every new home listed. (Delisting data is reported with a one-month lag in order to determine whether a delisted home was actually sold or truly delisted.)

“With median list prices essentially unchanged over the past two years, it’s clear that many sellers remain anchored to peak-era expectations,” says Krimmel. “While the market may be becoming more buyer-friendly, sellers still hold a trump card: delist the home and fish for that high asking price at a later date.”

Phoenix also leads in price reductions, with 34% of all listings there carrying a price cut in June. Austin, TX, and Denver followed closely in price-reduced share.

Nationally, 20.6% of home listings had price reductions in June—up 2.2 percentage points from last year. This is the highest June share in Realtor.com data going back to at least 2016.

Even with more price cuts, the national median list price held steady at $440,950 last month, up 0.1% from last year, underscoring that many sellers are still expecting to get peak-era prices.

Among large metros, the biggest year-over-year median price increases were in Baltimore (+6.8%), Virginia Beach, VA (+5.8), and Grand Rapids, MI (+5%).

The metros with the biggest year-over-year median price declines were Cincinnati (-5%), Sacramento, CA (-4.8%), and Miami (-4.7%).

“This year’s market is a study in contrasts,” says Danielle Hale, chief economist of Realtor.com. “Buyers are seeing more choices than they’ve had in years, but many sellers, anchored by peak price expectations and upheld by strong equity positions, are deciding to step back if they don’t get their number.

“Looking forward, this dynamic will affect whether we tip from a balanced to buyer’s market, and if so, how quickly that happens,” she adds.

Inventory hits new post-pandemic high

Even with more homeowners withdrawing their listings, buyers still have a greater number of homes to choose from than at any time since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Nationally, active listings topped 1 million for the second straight month in June, putting inventory about 13% below pre-pandemic norms, but steadily closing that gap.

Inventory grew in all four major U.S. regions in June, with the West seeing a 38% jump and the South up nearly 30%.

Every one of the top 50 metros posted active inventory gains year over year, led by Las Vegas (+77.6%) and Washington, DC (+63.6%).

Homes are also staying on the market longer, as median days on the market increased to 53 days—five days longer than a year ago and matching pre-pandemic patterns.