“I think the market is slogging along … and I think what could get it charged up a little bit would be more supply and lower mortgage rates, but right now just, it’s basically slogging along,” Dennis Shea, executive vice president and chairman of the Bipartisan Policy Center’s housing policy center, told the Washington Examiner.

Nadia Evangelou, principal economist and director of real estate research for the National Association of Realtors, said her group sees the national housing landscape as a market that is “gradually improving.”

“But it’s still challenging,” Evangelou told the Washington Examiner. “So we are seeing a little more activity than we did over the last couple of years, and buyers generally have more choices, but affordability is still the biggest hurdle.”

“So home prices remain high, and mortgage rates are still elevated,” she added.

On balance, home sales aren’t really making major moves either up or down in recent months, and many experts expect that sort of sideways trend to continue.

For instance, new home sales in June rose slightly to an annual rate of 628,000 homes, according to the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That is just 1.6% higher than the month before, and 5.6% below the June 2025 rate of 665,000 homes. The median sales price of a new home was slightly lower on both a monthly and yearly basis as well.

Meanwhile, existing home sales fell 1.7% in July, according to the National Association of Realtors. But existing home sales still ticked up a bit from the year before. Year-over-year sales rose in the Midwest and West, but were essentially flat in the Northeast and South.

“Home sales have been remarkably stable, even amid the rising mortgage rate environment of the past few months,” said NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun. “Year-to-date sales are up 2.4%, and there’s no doubt that the housing market would be thriving if average mortgage rates were to return near 6%.”

It’s also worth noting that the number of homebuyers in the United States hit a record low in July, according to Redfin. In July, there were about 967,000 buyers in the market — nearly half a million fewer than the 1,463,000 sellers.

The seller-to-buyer ratio in the housing market has been steadily increasing since the end of 2021. In 2021, there were about 35% more sellers than buyers. Now, there are about 51% more buyers than sellers.

Mortgage rates have been a point of trouble for the housing market. And they have risen higher in recent months as the war with Iran continues, has caused overall inflation to bounce, and has put more pressure on the Federal Reserve to hold or raise interest rates, rather than ease monetary policy.

As of Monday, the average rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage has risen to 6.73%, according to Mortgage News Daily, which tracks rates daily. That is up considerably from around the start of the year, when mortgage rates were clocking in at just above 6%.

And the higher rates the market is experiencing now came after a protracted period of mortgage rates being ultra-low following the pandemic — lower than 3% at certain points — which juiced housing demand, causing prices to soar and many to lock in great deals on home mortgages.

The higher rates now have had a dual effect on the market. On one hand, they might price out some potential buyers who may be waiting until they come down before they buy, and on the other hand, potential sellers might be holding off on putting their homes on the market because they don’t want to lose those low, pandemic-era mortgages.

Salim Furth is a senior research fellow and director of the Urbanity project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. Furth said despite the “long, slow shadow” of that period of super-low mortgage rates and refinancing, the market will eventually keep evolving.

For instance, he said life circumstances can end up eventually forcing people to move and that as there are fewer years left on someone’s mortgage, they might be more inclined to sell.

“So I see it as more like time is on our side, but it’s just moving very slowly in terms of unlocking people who are in kind of golden handcuffs with these great old-fashioned mortgages,” Furth told the Washington Examiner.

But the bigger issue overshadowing all of this is the need for more housing supply, according to Furth. And most of the effort to boost housing construction and supply comes from the state and local level, rather than from Congress.

Still, Congress has made an effort on the supply front. The House and Senate recently passed the biggest bipartisan housing bill in recent memory — the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act.

That legislation streamlines environmental reviews to speed up affordable housing development and makes it cheaper and easier to build manufactured homes. In addition to easing federal regulations, the bill also encourages states and cities to reform their land use rules, which would mark a significant change in the federalist system with respect to city planning.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION FLOATS CAPITAL GAINS TAX CUT ON HOME SALES — WHAT TO KNOW

Evangelou pointed out some bright spots in the market. For instance, when it comes to existing home sales, those were higher in the first half of 2026 than in both of the previous two years.

“And this was the first time since actually 2021 that we saw a year-over-year increase in sales during the first half of the year,” she added.