Redfin: Sellers Outnumber Buyers by a Record 57.9%; Buyer Count Lowest Since 2013
SEATTLE, Oct. 2 — Redfin estimates that about 1.53 million sellers were active in August, the most since early 2020, while buyers fell to roughly 972,300, the lowest count in data going back to 2013, according to a Mitrade summary of Redfin's figures. Sellers outnumbered buyers by 57.9%, the largest margin ever recorded. At the height of the pandemic-era bidding wars in early 2022, the picture was reversed, with buyers outnumbering sellers by around 35%.
Rising borrowing costs explain much of the retreat: the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 7.28% on Oct. 1, its highest since November 2023, pushing monthly payments beyond many household budgets. Sellers are adjusting in response — Redfin data show 21.1% of listings had a price cut in the four weeks to Sept. 20, a seasonal high since tracking began in 2022.
Analysts note this buyer's market has an unusual mechanism: demand is shrinking because household budgets are stretched, not because prices have fallen sharply. For buyers, a wider field of price cuts restores negotiating room, but the locked-in rate remains the largest component of total ownership cost alongside taxes and insurance.
Historical comparison shows the scale of the swing: through the pre-pandemic decade, seller and buyer counts were roughly balanced, trading places year to year. Buyers led by about 35% at the bidding-war peak in early 2022; sellers now lead by 57.9% — a swing of nearly 93 percentage points, the sharpest supply-demand reversal in Redfin's data.
Source: Redfin estimates as summarized by Mitrade; rate data from Freddie Mac's Oct. 1 survey.
Photo: Sold Sign and House — myguys.nova / CC BY-SA 2.0 (via Openverse)
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：郊区独立住宅前草坪上立有「已售」牌。摄影：Famartin，CC BY-SA 4.0，取自 Wikimedia Commons
