Weekly Market Update: August 24th through August 30th

The final full week of August brought a noticeable shift in the market, with fewer new listings and price reductions, while buyer activity actually picked up.

From August 24th through August 30th:

New Listings: 174 ↓ from 196
Pending Sales: 190 ↑ from 180
Sold Homes: 125 ↓ from 128
Price Reductions: 192 ↓ from 231

Trend Overview

New inventory continued to slow as we approached the end of summer, with 174 new listings compared with 196 the previous week. That’s a drop of roughly 11% in just one week.

But buyers didn’t follow sellers to the sidelines.

Pending sales increased from 180 to 190, meaning more homes went under contract this week despite fewer new listings hitting the market.

Closed sales remained remarkably steady at 125 compared with 128 last week, while price reductions dropped more noticeably from 231 to 192.

Put it all together and we’re seeing a market that is slowing seasonally on the listing side, but still showing plenty of activity from buyers.

Buyers Are Still Buying

The most interesting relationship this week may be between new and pending listings.

We had 174 new listings come onto the market while 190 homes went pending.

Those aren’t directly interchangeable numbers since the pending homes could have been listed days, weeks or even months ago. But they do give us a useful snapshot of what’s happening with available inventory.

Buyers are still absorbing homes even as fewer sellers are bringing new options to market.

That’s worth watching as we move into September.

Fewer Price Reductions, But Pricing Still Matters

Price reductions dropped from 231 last week to 192 this week, a fairly significant decline.

That’s encouraging for sellers, but 192 reductions against 174 new listings still tells us something important about today’s market: buyers remain extremely sensitive to price.

Homes that are positioned correctly are selling. Homes that aren’t are often sitting until the seller makes an adjustment.

This continues to be a market where the initial pricing strategy matters.

What This Means for Buyers

Buyers still have leverage in parts of this market, particularly when looking at homes that have accumulated market time or already reduced their price.

But the increase to 190 pending sales is a good reminder that you’re not shopping in a market without competition.

The best homes, especially those that are well prepared and correctly priced, can still move quickly.

With new listings beginning to slow, buyers shouldn’t automatically assume that waiting until fall will produce substantially more choices.

What This Means for Sellers

For sellers, fewer new listings means less fresh competition.

At the same time, the increase in pending sales tells us buyers are still out there and willing to act when the right home hits the market.

The caution remains pricing.

Even with fewer new listings, nearly 200 sellers reduced their asking price this week. Starting too high can cost valuable early market exposure and ultimately leave a seller chasing buyers instead of attracting them.

Looking Ahead to Labor Day

Now we head into Labor Day weekend, and that’s where things could get interesting.

Holiday weekends typically disrupt the normal flow of new listings and buyer activity, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see next week’s new listing numbers come in even lower.

The more important number may be pending sales.

If buyers continue putting homes under contract while new inventory slows further, we could enter September with a tighter selection of available homes than buyers might expect.

I’ll be watching that one closely next week.