United State Real Estate Market Update | The Powers Playbook Ep. 7

What is really happening in the U.S. real estate market in 2026?

In this episode of The Powers Playbook, we take a big-picture look at the national housing market and break down the data behind home sales, home prices, appreciation, mortgage rates, inventory levels, and affordability.

After attending the annual Keller Williams Family Reunion, Aaron brings back key insights and market statistics shared by industry leaders to help explain where the market has been — and where it may be heading next.

If you’ve been wondering whether the housing market is slowing down, crashing, or simply adjusting, this episode walks through the numbers to help you understand what’s actually happening.

In This Episode

• How many homes are selling in the U.S. right now compared to previous years
 • Why home sales dropped after the post-COVID boom
 • The long-term trend line of home prices and why prices typically rise over time
• What the data really says about home appreciation vs depreciation
• Why the housing market has remained surprisingly stable since 2012
• The current inventory levels in the United States and what that means for buyers and sellers
• Why the extreme seller’s market of 2021 was historically unusual
• How mortgage rates today compare to historical averages going back decades
• Why waiting for 3% interest rates again may not be realistic
• How affordability trends affect the ability for families to buy homes

Key Takeaway

Real estate markets move in cycles, but the long-term trend has historically been upward.

While the rapid appreciation seen during the COVID years has slowed, the data shows the market is stabilizing rather than collapsing. Understanding the numbers behind home sales, inventory, and mortgage rates can help buyers and sellers make more informed decisions about when and how to enter the market.

Thinking About Buying or Selling?

If you have questions about your local market, home values, or what these national trends might mean for your situation, feel free to reach out.

📧 info@powersre.com

About The Powers Playbook

The Powers Playbook is your guide to navigating the intersection of family, wealth, and real estate.

Each episode explores the strategies, market insights, and long-term thinking needed to make smart financial decisions through property ownership.

Subscribe for more conversations about real estate, generational wealth, and building a stronger financial future.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

You've opened the Powers Playbook. Your guide to family, wealth, and real estate. Welcome back, everybody. Another episode of the Powers Playbook. Um, the play we're running today is actually going to be a U.S. real estate market update. So we're gonna talk about um kind of a higher level view of what's been going on in the overall real estate market nationwide. And um we're gonna share some information about this for a couple episodes coming up, um, and then we'll we'll get you know into more local market content. But this was really interesting. So the reason I'm bringing this to you, um, start with a little story for you. So uh back in February, uh Emily and I went to Keller Williams Family Reunion, uh, which is the Keller Williams uh big get-together, they call it family reunion. It's their annual convention, they do it every year. This year was in Atlanta, Georgia. First time to Atlanta. Um, pretty cool, pretty cool downtown uh spot that they got there with uh everything's really connected, convention center, um, stadiums, um, kind of a cool area. So one of the things they do is they always do a vision speech. And it's basically the you know, owner of uh Kyler Williams, Gary Keller, and a few people that he trusts, and they go over the statistics of what's going on in the overall market. So I'm gonna bring that to you today. If you are watching on video, you'll see slides come up and I'm gonna talk about them. Um, if you're listening on audio, uh, you obviously won't see the slides, uh, hopefully, if you're driving or you know on the treadmill, like we got the slides, so you're okay. Um, but we're gonna share those with you. Um, I'll do my best to describe, um, talk about data, numbers. Uh, and if at any point you are interested uh in the slide deck or want more information, um, simply email us uh info at powersre.com and we can have a further conversation or get those to you. So um let's get right into it. The first thing we are gonna talk about, um also I've got my computer here with me. Um, there's a lot of data on these slides, no way I'm gonna remember everything. So I'm gonna use it today. Um, I'm gonna refer back and forth uh if you're watching, so that's kind of why it's here. Um first one, home sales. All right. So slide actually shows home sales all the way from 1990 up until current in 2026. Really interesting um to look at. Uh they are um in uh millions, by the way, if you're if you're looking at the numbers. So um just as a peak, the most we've ever sold was back in 05. We sold 7.1 million homes back in 2005, right? Right before the uh the crash that uh changed everything in 08. Um, and just for context, back in 2020, which was COVID year, we sold 5.6 million homes. The very next year, 2021, 6.1 million homes. And then here is your interest rate adjustment. 22, we sold 5 million homes. The last three years, 23, 24, and 25, 4.1 million homes. So from 21 to 23, 24, 25, we've sold two million less homes in the United States through those three years. And that's a pretty big change. Uh that's where if you were in real estate, it felt, I don't want to say easy, but I think for a lot of people it felt relatively easy as far as how quickly things would move or where they would come from. Um, and the last few years has not felt such easy, right? It's uh it's hard. We are working, you know, things are even on both sides. Um, we are projected this year to sell 4.3 million homes. Obviously, that's a projection, so we'll see where we go. But just really interesting to look at this from the history of where we've come from to where we are today. Um, and uh we still have uh room for growth. Just to give you context, back in 08, which was obviously the bottom um of that market shift where you know the basically market crashed and mortgages went up in flames. Uh we sold 4.1 million homes that year. That's the same number we sold last year. So just to give you context of what that means for our history, um, it also means that anytime it's ever been that low, it has then gone up. So we are now, I would believe, uh trajectory will be selling more homes year over year for the foreseeable future. So that is a year home sales in a nutshell. Um I wanted to get to this next one, which is home prices. This one is is really interesting to see. Uh, this is built on this, there's a green line on this uh graph, and it's called the trend line. The trend line is is basically averaging a four percent increase in price year over year, right? Uh you'll hear a lot of times inflation is generally anywhere from three to five percent a year. That's where that number comes from, the four percent trend line. Back in 2006, is the highest we've ever been, and uh we were average sale price was 222,000, and at that time that was 21% above the annual trend line. Now, today we are uh last year we were at 414,000, which is your average price, and that was 7.4% above the trend line. So, you know, we see and hear people all the time say about how overpriced the houses are and and you know how up the market is and that it's gonna crash and it's gonna go way down. And the interesting thing is we're really not that far above that 4% trend line in in history. Um, we have really never gone too far above that, other than that again, 05, 06, 07 mark where we were way above. Um, and you saw what happened. So it's just showing you that even if it were to, let's say, correct or go down, there really isn't, we're not that far above where the 4% trend would be at this time. We are projected to be at $423,000 as an average sale price this year in the US. That'll be even less than that 7.4% above trend that will come down a little bit. So we'll be getting even closer to that trend line. And it's just meaning that when you say prices are so high, or you know, how did they get here? Well, if you if you look at this graph, you can understand that the trend line exists and it has always gone that way, right? I don't know about you, but I don't know of anything 10 years ago that's cheaper than it was then. I don't know of anything 20 years ago that was cheaper then than it is now. So it's just an average trend that's going to continue to grow. And this could be with anything. We're just talking about real estate today, right? So um very interesting to note, but if let's say, you know, oh it's gonna correct, I'm gonna wait, there's not that much correction built in. So I think it's just really interesting to look at that and what the median home prices have done. Uh since 19, back in 1990, by the way, at the start of this graph, the average price was $96,000. So I don't know about you guys, but uh I wish I would have bought all the homes available in 1990. So all of the, you know, those of you that are like, hey, is it a good time to buy? You know, I've been thinking about X, Y, or Z. Well, in the history of real estate, it's always gone up at some point. So this is your uh your calling to say if you're thinking about it, there's always a way to figure out if it's a good time if you can do it. All right, so that's your your trend line on pricing. Just really interesting to note that we're really not all that far above where we think we would be. Okay now, this next slide is annual appreciation. And the reason I wanted to show it to you is when you get to, you know, it also starts in 1990, goes all the way to current today. And this is showing you how the appreciation has gone year over year, but in the context of not just where the prices are, but like what's the actual percentage up and down, right? From 06 to 11, we were down 4.4%. The lowest we've ever been down in one year is from 08 to 09, prices depreciated 12.9%, most in history. Interestingly enough to note, you would think after the COVID years and the new rate increase of current that we would have had depreciation in those years. And we actually, between 22 and 23, when that happened, we did not depreciate. We went from appreciating 10.2% in 22 to only appreciating 0.8% in 23. But I think if you asked most people, they would say, Oh, prices went down. It's interesting to note that overall, through the US economy, we actually did not depreciate. Uh, we just didn't appreciate. And that's you know, interesting because I I've had a lot of conversations recently. It's like, hey, you know, I bought my house two or three years ago, what is it worth? And the answer most of the time is it's worth about what you bought it for. And this is basically showing you that exactly. In 23, we appreciated 0.8%, 24, 4.7%. Last year, 1.7%, so relatively even or nothing. This year we are projected to appreciate 2%. Remember that 4% trend line on the slide before, we're gonna be less than the 4% trend line. So we are not appreciating at a rate that's going to allow you to make short-term real estate decisions that are going to benefit you in any big way. Right? This is a let me see what I can get a good deal on and let me hold it until the right time. Right? So just interestingly enough to note that that COVID years between 20 and 22, we appreciated 12.5% in a three-year period. That's a lot. In the last three years, we've only appreciated 2.4% in context to the previous. So just something of note, we went way up in that period of time and we're coming back down to uh to Earth here a little bit. Um, but it just wanted to show you that you we didn't actually have any negative appreciation. The last year we had negative appreciation in real estate year over year was back in 2011, and it was down 3.9%. Every other year it has appreciated at least something, which is really interesting to note. It just shows you from 2012 to current how stable honestly the real estate market has been from where we came from. So pretty cool to note. Okay. We are now going to talk about inventory. So, inventory, we have actually statistics from 1983 all the way up to 2025, because that's the last year that finished that we could calculate. Um, your the way we work with inventory in the United States is it's on an average months of supply, meaning that if we stopped today, it did not sell another house, or I'm sorry, did not list another house for sale, how long would it take us to sell through the current inventory if nothing else came on the market? That's how we figure out what the average inventory is uh in the United States. Um, we have like a little dotted green line going through the center here, and that is telling us what balanced inventory is. We think quote unquote balanced is about six months of inventory. And balanced just means that we have negotiating power or or say so between buyer and seller in an almost equal way, right? Meaning like the buyer is gonna have some power to negotiate, the seller isn't gonna get exactly what they want, there's gonna be some some give and take in that, right? For context, last year we were at 4.2 months supply of inventory. Okay, so we're still a little bit less than balanced, a little less than that six-month profile. And in our market, it kind of feels like it's a little bit more of a buyer's market just because the you know rates are a little bit higher. So it's sometimes the buyers are asking for more so they can get qualified for that loan, and the seller's having to give a little bit more than what the inventory may say. So kind of interesting. If you'll note in 2021, our average month's supply of inventory in the entire United States was 2.2 months, lowest in recorded history. If you bought a house in 2021, you know exactly what I'm talking about. This was the period of time when you had to overpay, waive appraisal, waive contingencies, uh pay over the appraised value for a property, sometimes upwards of $20,000, $50,000, $100,000 in some markets. So thankfully, on the buying side, we're not there anymore. It's a little bit more of a level playing field. But if you were a seller back then, you were uh jumping for joy, right? Because you were getting more than what you wanted, like anything you wanted almost. So this also shows you we still have some work to do. We are still in need of more inventory to truly become a balanced US market, meaning that we still have in most cases more buyers than sellers. So just keep that in mind as you're looking. Oh, is it a you know good time to sell? Where's the inventory? Well, it's been trickling up. 21 was 2.2 months supply, 22, 2.6, 23, 3.1, 2024, we had 3.7 months supply. In 25, we had 4.2 months supply. You can almost guess that by the end of 2026, our supply is going to be slightly higher than that as well. So if you're one of the people who have been thinking, I know I'm gonna want to sell, when's the right time? If I was a seller, I think I would be interested in the inventory being lower than higher, right? Um, and then we're gonna talk about rates and a couple other slides here that may make that uh deciding factor for you as well. Um, but just interesting to note uh where things were in the uh height of inventory. If you take away uh 83, we had 10.5 months supply in 84 we had 10.8. Those are the highs in in current times. 2008, we had 10 months supply of inventory. That was the highest in recent recorded history. And then I already told you the lowest was 2021, and we're trickling back up as of now. So interesting to note. Um, and in in all of these stats, by the way, we're talking about single-family homes. So if you've got different data, that's totally understandable. Um, this is all coming from the National Association of Realtors for single-family homes, uh, sales, purchases, and likewise. All right, next one big topic of conversation for basically everybody mortgage rates. I try I uh teach home buying classes every so often. And I always pull this slide, whatever the slide is for that year, because I just want people to know where we came from versus where we are today. And if you weren't in the market previous to, let's say, I don't know, 2020 or before, you're like, oh, well, I will I'm gonna wait till the interest rates are 3% again. Well, that's really only happened one time in recorded history, and that was when it happened, when those rates were available within the last decade. Previous to that, the highest interest rate we've seen on average. Now, these are historical averages, keep that in mind. I'm sure it's been higher, but the highest average of any year was 1981, the interest rates were 16.63%. I don't know if if you have ever heard of interest rates being that high before, but I can tell you right now, um, those of us that have it at 6%, uh, it could be worse. Okay, go and ask your parents and grandparents the way that they uh thought about those interest rates. So in 1981, 16.63%. That's the highest average we've ever seen. It started to go down a little bit after that. Historical averages, if you take 1972, when this started being recorded all the way to 2023, the average was 7.72%. If you take newer historical average, which would be 1990 to 1923, the average is 6% for interest rates. Last year, our average finished at 6.6% in 2025, and our projection for this year is 5.9% on average for interest rates. I say all this just to tell you that it could be a heck of a lot worse. And after 08 and the crash and everything that happened, we kept mortgage rates historically low for a very long time. I am not sure that I see them going down to that point again unless we've got something wrong and a reason to put them there like we did before. Now I'm hopeful that rates will trickle down and we can get us into like, you know, the fives and the fours and that kind of thing. But to get at 3% or below that or anywhere near it, I think is probably you know foolish to wait for at this point, unless something, you know, shows us otherwise. Um, but I just think it's really interesting to note that before 08, a five, six, seven percent interest rate on a mortgage was totally normal. So I just want to I guess bring it back to people to say it's not so much about what the rate is versus what somebody else has. We're not we're not competing here. We're simply trying to figure out at the rate you're allowed to borrow at, can you make it work for yourself? Yes or no? And then make our decisions based on that. Because I'll tell you one thing those people that got rates beforehand, when the interest rates did fall after the crash, do you think some of those people got to refinance their homes? I would almost guarantee that they did. So we can still utilize rates to our advantage, but if we have no asset, then the rate doesn't matter anyways. So um just really cool to look at the historical average of interest rates and where they were versus where they came from. We're gonna talk about affordability here in a little bit, but I think that's probably the biggest keyword in this is those rates and the affordability that they create or they don't. Okay, um, we are going to go now to mortgage rate breakdown. Um, this is basically showing you a wheel, and it notes that 48.5% of mortgages have rates that are 4% or higher, which means almost half of all mortgages have a rate of 4% or higher. That number is going to increase, continue to increase because the rates are on average higher than they were before. 20% of people have a mortgage rate of 3% or less, 31.5% have 3-4%, 17.1% have 4 to 5% interest rate, 10.2% have a 5-6% rate, and 6 or more on mortgage interest rates, 21.2% of borrowers. So that number has gone up recently, obviously, because rates have gone up. Interesting item as well 39% of all homes are mortgage free. So almost 40% of homes in the United States do not have a mortgage at all. So these rates breakdown that we're looking at is really the other 60% of homes. Right? If you listen to a previous episode, we talked about the great wealth transfer that's happening in our country in the next 10, 20 years. If you haven't go back and listen to that, it's really interesting about the baby boomer generation giving all of their wealth down to all the rest of us. Um, but that is really where that 40% of mortgage-free property likely comes from, is from that group. Okay. Um, but just interesting to know, like the mortgage of over 3% is going to become more and more common because that's what's available to us, and it is really not a bad deal, right? Go back and ask those who borrowed money in the 80s how they felt about the rates. Okay, this one uh is affordability. Now, interestingly enough, I told you about the 80s, right? And you're probably thinking, well, well, yeah, but the houses were so cheap, right? Well, that's you know, they could pay those interest rates. If we're taking the principal and interest percentage. Of what people's income was back then. Affordability percentage in 1981 was at 49%. The highest in recorded history. So if they were able to do it, I think we'll find a way. I think we'll find a way. Back in 2006, the affordability percentage was at 32%, which is exactly where it was last year in 2025, at 32%. We peaked at 34% back in 2023. And if you're looking at this chart, you can see from 2020 to 2023, it just goes straight, almost straight up, because of the interest rate change. Interest rates really changed affordability for a lot of people. The other cool thing that I see about this graph is every time we've had a peak has always been followed by a pretty long valley. Meaning that the government and everyone around us is going to try to make affordability better over time. So again, affordability should be coming down. We'll hopefully get some relief. I think rates will trend down as well. I don't think there'll be any big change, but over time, I think that will in turn start to help us. Historical average of affordability from 1972 to 2023, 27%. We've had it pretty good for a pretty long time in real estate affordability. It did go up, yes. Hopefully it will start to come back down a little bit. Um, that's the tr what the trend has shown us it has done before. And um I think this is the thing, the one slide I would say affordability that's probably affected most people is even if they could get the rate that would allow them to, the payment is generally more than they think it's going to be, or more than they want it to be. And so I'm hopeful that with um with prices kind of you know not even on the 4% trend line, but a little bit lower, mortgage rates now starting to come down a little bit as well, we're gonna get some relief here and it's gonna become a better time for people to be able to buy homes. Right? We if you've listened to this show, I think we've already established that buying real estate is a better decision than not buying it, right? Because the asset will allow you to actually follow and benefit from these numbers over time that we're showing you. My hope is that it will allow more people as the affordability starts to go down to get into the market to be able to do this for their family. Okay. Um that is our US real estate market update in a nutshell. Um, like I said, if you're interested in the slides or have any other specific questions, um please reach out and let us know. Um, we are going to talk on the next one about the overall US economy. Uh, we're gonna talk about things like unemployment, right? Job growth, what jobs are being created to kind of get you to understand the things that are shaping uh the market, the rates, and all of the things that we're talking about. So until then, go out there, be wise, and make good decisions. And we'll see you on the next one. Love you guys.