September gave us a market that’s holding its breath rather than moving decisively in either direction. Sales volume came in flat versus last year, year-to-date closings have slipped slightly behind 2025’s pace, and even the luxury segment — which has been the one bright spot carrying this market all year — cooled off a bit. Here’s what the numbers actually show.
The Headline: A Market Treading Water
Closed sales are now running 2.2% behind where they were at this point last year. That’s not a dramatic drop, but it confirms that the slowdown we’ve been tracking through the summer wasn’t a one-month blip. Luxury sales are still outperforming their 2025 numbers for the year overall, which has been the real story of 2026 — the top of the market pulling the broader numbers forward. But that engine lost some power in September too, with luxury closings slipping along with everything else.
Prices: Median Steady, Average Pulling Back
The median single-family home price held flat at $475,000 — no real movement there. The average sale price is where the real signal is: it dropped from $639,579 down to $598,390. When the average falls faster than the median, it almost always means fewer high-dollar sales pulled the average down, and that’s exactly what happened here — luxury closings slipped, which narrowed the gap between the average and the median this month. Read broadly, prices trended lower across the board in September.
Luxury Still Led, Just at a Slower Pace
Even with the slowdown, the top of the market did real work in September: 148 closings above $1 million, including 14 above $3 million. That’s still a meaningful share of the month’s activity sitting well above the median — luxury buyers haven’t left the market, they’re just transacting a little less aggressively than earlier in the year.
Inventory Is Loosening, But Unevenly
Overall residential inventory now sits at 6.2 months of supply. New listings coming onto the market in September outpaced August by roughly 100, while September closings came in only about 50 behind August’s pace — in other words, inventory is building faster than it’s being absorbed. That’s the clearest sign yet that the balance of power is shifting toward buyers, at least in aggregate.
The caveat, and it’s an important one: that 6.2-month average hides enormous variation by community. Some areas are sitting at a tight 3 months of inventory — still squarely a seller’s market — while others are sitting at 38 months, which is about as buyer-favorable as this valley gets. If you’re pricing a listing or evaluating an offer, the valley-wide number tells you almost nothing about your specific street.
Pricing Discipline Is Starting to Matter More
The Overpricing Index is sitting at 53%, and 27% of all active listings have now been sitting for 90 days or more without going into escrow. Combine that with pending contracts continuing to drop while active listings climb sharply, and the message is straightforward: homes that are priced to the current market are still moving, and homes that are priced for the market we had a year ago are the ones stacking up unsold.
A Quiet Shift in How Buyers Are Financing
The financing mix is worth watching closely. Cash purchases, conventional financing, and VA financing are all retreating as a share of closings, while FHA and other non-conventional financing types are the only categories rising. That’s generally a sign of a buyer pool skewing toward tighter budgets and lower down payments — which tracks with a market where price sensitivity is clearly increasing.
What This Means If You’re Buying or Selling
For sellers, the Overpricing Index and the 90-day stat are the numbers to take seriously — this is not a market that rewards testing a high number and waiting. For buyers, rising inventory and softening averages mean more genuine negotiating room than the last couple of years offered, especially outside the tightest-supply pockets. And if you’re operating in the luxury tier specifically, September’s numbers say the segment is still healthy, just no longer accelerating the way it was earlier this year.
If you want to know where your specific neighborhood falls on that 3-to-38-month inventory spread, that’s a five-minute conversation — and it’ll tell you a lot more than the valley-wide average ever will.
