Episode summary
The housing market trends that will shape the rest of 2026
HousingWire Daily
· · Hosts: Sarah Wheeler · Guests: Rachel Bader
Summary
The first half of 2026 looked less like a housing market in crisis than a market that had normalized. Rachel Bader argues demand did not collapse, inventory did not surge, and the biggest surprise was resilience: higher mortgage rates and broader macro headwinds did not stop buyers from transacting. She says the strongest lesson was that housing “didn’t break”; it adapted.
That adaptation was especially clear regionally. Bader points to Dallas as a market that now looks more normal than anomalous, with higher inventory, longer days on market, and more concessions, yet still plenty of transactions. She also highlights Hartford as an unexpected leader, saying markets that were not driven up by the pandemic boom have become top performers. By contrast, Austin shows that a price correction alone is not a magic fix: lower prices changed the market, but did not make it one of the hottest in the country.
Bader says the Midwest, including Cleveland and Columbus, has stayed strong because it never experienced the same extremes and therefore did not need the same correction. Looking ahead, she is focused on new listings, absorption, and whether inventory can keep turning into sales as buyers and sellers find agreement.
Key takeaways
- Rachel Bader says the first half of 2026 showed a resilient housing market, not one where demand collapsed or inventory exploded.
- Dallas has normalized: higher inventory and longer days on market have not stopped it from generating transactions, according to Rachel Bader.
- Hartford is becoming one of the hottest U.S. markets, a sign that markets untouched by the pandemic boom are now outperforming, Rachel Bader says.
- Bader argues Austin shows that a 20% price cut is not enough by itself to create a strong housing market.
- The Midwest’s Cleveland and Columbus are holding up because they avoided the extreme boom-and-bust cycle, Bader says.
Notable quotes
“the market was much more resilient”
“housing market has normalized. It didn't break”
“Dallas isn't broken. And it's just behaving like a housing market again”
“Hartford doesn't get talked about a ton. Um but I it's like quickly becoming the hottest market in the United States”
“the markets that never broke didn't have to recover”
How the episode opens
Welcome everyone. My guest today is Rachel Bator, Vice President of Audience and Growth, to talk about housing market trends from the first half of 2026 that will be shaping the rest of this year. We've got lots of market specific data to talk about, so let's dive in. Rachel, welcome back to the podcast.
Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here.
Always happy to talk to you. You know, you are somebody who digs into our data and can give us some really great insights about what's going on. So, I wanted to talk to you about like we're at the halfway point now.
Let's talk about the first half of 2026 and what housing did maybe some of the things that we saw that trending wise that surprised us. So, let's start from big picture. When you look at the first half of 2026, what does housing look like?
Yeah, so it's been interesting, right? I think that everybody kind of wondered what what this year was going to bring and now we're halfway through and I was you know, you and I were talking about this podcast and should we do a look back and see kind of what what's happening and what the trends are. And and as I was like revisiting the data and and pulling like new fresh HousingWire data for this podcast, what surprised me is like even though I've spent almost every day looking at data this year, which which is which is new for me since I've joined HousingWire.
But um and when I when I kind of look back, it ended up leaving me asking more questions and then really like compiling answers. And honestly, that caught me off guard a little bit because you know, I've been writing these weekly articles and doing data digest and I feel like I'm in it.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- housing market trends
- mortgage market
- real estate market
- housing supply
- demand dynamics
Watch the episode
Watch “The housing market trends that will shape the rest of 2026” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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