There’s always next year.
The top real estate forecasters have released their predictions for some of the industry’s most important metrics in 2026, and overall they all agree that things will be heading in the right direction.
Sales of existing homes will be higher in 2026 than in 2025. Mortgage interest rates will fall. And house prices will generally rise.
However, that is where the consensus ends.
To end the year, Inman collected the top five housing forecasts from economists at the National Association of Realtors, the portals Zillow and Realtor.com, and the brokerages Redfin and Compass.
The outlook highlights the contrasts and similarities between different groups and companies, showing which are the most bullish and which are more cautiously optimistic.
One takeaway: NAR predicts the rosiest outlook for the real estate market after three years of slog across the country.
And one more: what happens in the real estate market in 2026 largely depends on macroeconomic and political factors that have undermined consumer confidence.
This is what economists predict for next year.
Sales of existing homes will increase, but by how much?
NAR started out in November with by far the most optimistic outlook for the sale of existing homes.
NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun said at the group’s NXT Realtor conference that he expects home sales to rise 14 percent by 2026.
That rate is more than three times higher than the next-closest forecast from Zillow economists, who expect existing home sales to rise 4.3 percent.
Yun said in a recent interview with Fox Business that a combination of factors will contribute to the sales increase. And him added that his rosy sales outlook stems in part from his renewed and long-standing prediction that mortgage rates would fall close to 6 percent next year.
Compass chief economist Mike Simonsen left some room for a “Goldilocks” environment, with home sales rising as much as 10 percent next year.
Such a scenario would require mortgage rates to fall lower than they are today, take-up rates to fall among sellers who were reluctant to move, and pent-up demand to be released, Simonsen noted. his prediction.
Mortgage interest
To base his prediction that home sales would rise 14 percent next year, Yun said he looked at data from 2011 and 2012, when mortgage rates fell 1 percent and sales rose by about 1 million.
“Now that mortgage rates are expected to rise from, for example, 7 percent, which is also what the interest rate was [in the] early 2025, now almost 6 percent […] we will get additional people eligible for the mortgages,” Yun said.
While not all buyers will respond if mortgage rates fall, even if 10 percent do, it would be enough to cause a relative increase in sales, he said.
NAR’s outlook for mortgage rates was also the most optimistic, in line with expectations Yun’s tendency to predict rosier outcomes.
Compass Simonsen said in his prediction that rates this year should average 6.4 percent. Redfin and Realtor.com both said they expect interest rates to average 6.3 percent this year.
Zillow was the only major forecaster Inman looked at that didn’t specify an average mortgage rate for the year, but the portal agreed that rates would remain stubbornly above 6 percent.
For more context: Forecasters at Fannie Mae expects interest rates to drop to 5.9 percent at the end of next year, while the Mortgage Bankers Association keeps interest rates at 6.4 percent for the entire year.
Wages and house prices are rising
While every forecaster expects home prices to continue rising nationally, they all acknowledge that price gains will be greater in some markets, while other markets could see prices fall.
Overall, most economists predict that buyers will gain some relative affordability as wages are expected to outpace home price growth. Combined with lower mortgage rates, economists generally said market fundamentals were moving closer together.
Once again, NAR’s outlook was almost twice that of the next forecaster.
Realtor.com expects house prices to rise by 2.2 percent next year. Zillow and Redfin said 1.2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
Compass was once again the most bearish on home prices nationally, predicting home prices would rise just 0.1 percent this year.
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