Is this Spring a sheet home selling season?

I fired up two additional graphs to show what's going on. Starting in 2021 existing home sales started to drop fueled in part because home prices had gone nuts. Then at the beginning of 2022 interest rates shot up. A final torpedo in the homesales market.

More people are listing homes for sale, but they're not moving great.

Housing Market’s Spring Is Shaping Up as a Bust After April Sales Were Flat

Existing-home sales edged up 0.2%, well below economist expectations and extending the industry’s long slump

By Nicole Friedman, WSJ

Updated May 11, 2026 10:31 am ET

Existing home sales rose 0.2% in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million, falling below economists’ forecasts.

View more

Home sales were flat in April, dealing a substantial blow to a housing industry that was counting on a strong spring season to emerge from an extended slump.

Sales of existing homes rose 0.2% in April over the previous month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.02 million, the National Association of Realtors said Monday.

That slight gain marked a reversal from March, when home sales dropped a revised 2.9%. But April numbers were far below expectations. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had forecast a 3% increase.

Mortgage rates dropped below 6% in late February, spurring optimism for a robust spring, which is typically the busiest time of year in the housing market. But the war in Iran pushed up inflation expectations and mortgage rates, which rose to 6.37% last week.

Buyers are also worried about the job market and turned off by still-high home prices, making them hesitant to commit to a purchase, agents say.

Real-estate agents and mortgage lenders are now bracing for another slow year of home sales. The market has been stuck in a rut for more than three years, slumping after mortgage rates started to climb in 2022. This spring selling season is now looking like a repeat of the past three that were largely busts.

When mortgage rates fell in February, that raised the prospect of a recovery and a busy spring, said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.

“But the oil-price shock essentially messed that up,” he said. With rates rising since February, “that has hit the momentum, potential momentum, to recovery.”

Home prices are still edging higher on a national basis, because the supply of homes for sale—while rising—remains below prepandemic norms.

The national median existing-home price in April rose to $417,700, a 0.9% increase from a year earlier and the highest median home price for any April, NAR said.

If mortgage rates fall below 6% again, sales activity will rise, said Jeffrey Ruben, president of WSFS Home Lending. “There’s no question about it,” he said.

But a rate above 6.5% could spook more buyers out of the market. “As you get on the other side of 6.5%, I think it can have the other effect,” he said.

Mortgage rates are still below year-ago levels, and prices are flat or falling in many parts of the U.S., giving buyers more leverage to negotiate.

“Buyers are getting some very great buys, coupled with seller concessions,” said Dianne Ayala Steffey, a senior mortgage adviser in San Antonio. “It’s still going to be a rough year, but I do believe that we’re going to see people still entering into purchasing.”

Thomas Bechtel locked in a 6.125% mortgage rate and finalized the purchase of Chicago condo in April.

Thomas Bechtel locked in a 6.125% mortgage rate and completed the purchase of a Chicago condo in April. Madeline Flanagan

Thomas Bechtel has been looking off and on for a condo in Chicago for two years. When he had an offer accepted for a one-bedroom in March, mortgage rates were rising quickly.

“Literally every day it was like, ‘Hey, here’s your new price,’ ” Bechtel said about shopping for a mortgage. “This market made it pretty tricky.”

He locked in a 6.125% mortgage rate and completed the purchase in April.

The number of homes for sale rose 5.8% from March and rose 1.4% from April 2025, NAR said.

The typical home sold in April was on the market for 32 days, up from 29 days a year earlier, NAR said.

In competitive markets in the Northeast and Midwest, agents say they still see pent-up demand from buyers who have been waiting for inventory to rise or prices to go down.

“The demand is still there,” said Steph Mahon, a real-estate agent in Westfield, N.J. “When the rates increase, they’re just forced into a different budget.”

But in the South and West, the inventory of homes for sale has climbed above prepandemic levels, weighing on prices.

Cinnamon Schulze, Ryan Martin, and their baby

Cinnamon Schulze and Ryan Martin took their San Antonio home off the market in March after two years.

Cinnamon Schulze and Ryan Martin took their San Antonio home off the market in March. They had wanted to sell and move closer to family in Florida, but they had no offers after two years on the market and multiple price cuts.

They plan to make some renovations and try listing it again in a year or two, Schulze said.

“I feel like people are afraid right now to make any permanent type of decision on buying a house,” she said. “It’s just so expensive right now.”

News Corp, owner of the Journal, operates Realtor.com under license from NAR.