The U.S. housing market has yet to pick up steam into 2026, but real estate agents say there’s been a real shift toward a more balanced market, according to the quarterly CNBC Housing Market Survey.Mortgage rates didn’t move much at all in the last quarter of 2025, but home prices are steadily easing. The average rate on the popular 30-year fixed mortgage dropped sharply in the third quarter but then stabilized between 6.2% and 6.4% during the fourth quarter, leaving some buyers on the sidelines with no incentive to jump in.Now, there are early signs of what could be more activity ahead. [embedded content]”The buyers I have seen have been buying because of life circumstances, whether it’s having a baby or moving for a job or retiring or downsizing,” said Ashley Rummage, a real estate agent in Raleigh, North Carolina.Of the real estate agents surveyed by CNBC in the fourth quarter, 37.5% said it was a balanced market, rather than the buyer’s market they reported seeing in the third quarter. That is up from 30% as of the third quarter and is likely because consumers became less confident in the economy as job losses grew. [embedded content]”The people who had been moving and the momentum that we had were definitely slowed down, far, far less by interest rates than the intrinsic factors, the cost of living,” said Heather Dell, a real estate agent in Detroit. “Homeowners insurance, car insurance and utilities and medical insurance are the top objections that I hear when a buyer talks about buying.” The CNBC Housing Market Survey is a national inquiry of real estate agents selected randomly across the United States. Responses for the fourth-quarter survey were collected between Dec. 10 and Dec. 17. This quarter, 72 agents shared their insights. While the majority of agents said it is still a buyer’s market due to easing prices and more inventory for sale, some agents noted that their buyers and sellers still have very different expectations.Get Property Play directly to your inboxCNBC’s Property Play with Diana Olick covers new and evolving opportunities for the real estate investor, delivered weekly to your inbox.Subscribe here to get access today.”Buyers tend to think that the market is like 2008 and sellers tend to think that the market is closer to 2021, 2022, and those are diametrically opposed markets and diametrically opposed mindsets,” said John Fragola, a real estate agent in Charleston, South Carolina. Of course, 2008 was the start of the subprime mortgage crisis, which led to the Great Re …
