Why this fall is feeling like spring in these US housing markets

For Amanda Jones, a real estate agent with Compass in San Francisco, fall is typically the second-busiest time of the year behind the spring. But in the last month or so, Jones said it’s been “like a light switch has been flipped.”

“The interest rates softening a little bit has been helpful,” she told Homes.com in an interview. “We started seeing more activity even before announcements about rates going down because I think people were excited about the opportunity to get in and to get a better price.”

Matt Laricy, a Chicago-based agent with Americorp, is similarly seeing unseasonal activity.

“We’re seeing an extremely strong fall push” as more homes hit the market than usual, Laricy said.

While not all cities are experiencing this increase in activity, the steady decline in mortgage rates over recent months is now being reflected in the sales market, with an uptick in listings and a boost in buyer interest.

Broadly speaking, the average 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage — a common choice for homebuyers — has been on the decline since June. As of Oct. 2, that figure stood at 6.34%, down 0.57 percentage points from January. With the exception of a few weeks of minor increases, mortgage rates are near 12-month lows, and there are signs that the downward trend could be here to stay.

That trend has manifested into a corresponding uptick in demand from homebuyers, according to data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

In September, the association reported the strongest week for borrower demand since 2022. As of the week ended Oct. 3, purchase loan demand was 14% higher than the comparable week a year ago.

Here’s how that activity is playing out in some of the nation’s largest housing markets.

In San Francisco, declining mortgage rates are translating into activity that is permeating the buy and sell sides, according to Jones. While buyers are eager to get a more affordable loan, sellers see an opportunity.

“I absolutely think it’s got some people bringing their house on before it’s even ready,” Jones said. “I’ve been able to preview two houses this week where the sellers gave the agents a week to show it before they move out, paint and stage and do the whole thing.”

It’s not just mortgage rates that are driving the market in San Francisco, though. Jones also noted that the influx of artificial intelligence jobs is bringing more buyers to town — and motivating others to sell.

The stock market is also a source of confidence for clients of Callum Hutchins, a Sotheby’s International Realty agent in San Francisco.

“We see these markets turn on a dime … It means that the money is there,” he told Homes.com. "Our trajectory is not a doom loop, it’s positive."

It’s a different story further South. In the Los Angeles area, Compass real estate agent Stephanie Younger said her fall is off to a slow start, defined by price reductions and fears about the slowing entertainment industry.

The drop in mortgage rates “doesn’t seem low enough to motivate buyers right now when there’s a lot of other economic stress and uncertainty,” she told Homes.com in an interview. “While it’s helpful and we’re happy to have had the rate decrease … it hasn’t sort of spurred on the kind of fever activity that we might have hoped we would see for the last quarter of the year.”

Even so, Younger said she’s feeling some optimism in the market about the potential for further rate reductions, and she’s warning her sellers to prepare for buyer interest if and when that happens.

"We know that over the last few years, while the rates have been higher, every time they’ve touched closer to six, the demand has risen,” she said. "A lot of sellers are either ready to put their house on the market or are ready to take a reduction, a strategic reduction now rather than say wait until the new year."

This fall has brought personal record deals for Laricy in Chicago, he said.

“I’ve posted the best couple of weeks I’ve ever had in October,” he told Homes.com in an interview, noting both July and August were unusually busy months. “We’re seeing an extremely strong fall push … A lot of inventory hit the market. It’s not typical this time of year.”

In Chicago's Northside neighborhoods, agent Juliana Yeager with the @properties group at Christie’s International Real Estate continues to see multiple offers on homes. Any single-family home priced below $1.8 million “is flying off the market” with multiple offers, many with cash, she said.

It has little to do with mortgage rates, though, with many homeowners finding the average 6.34% rates not a big improvement from the COVID-era percentages.

“I don’t think it’s moving the needle a ton. It’s those buyers that have to move, not the buyers that want to move,” Yeager told Homes.com.

While the upper echelon of buyers finds little help with inching down mortgage rates, they do find support in the strength of the stock market, noted Cleveland luxury agent Brian Cantrall with Chestnut Hill Realty. That strength is buoyed by consumer confidence.

"This August was the best August we’ve ever had,” Cantrall said in an interview. “Our fall has been very busy.”

After a bustling fall, agents expect the most popular spring selling season to be even hotter, as more buyers enter the market and sellers begin to list. For Chicago, that season starts in January.

“I’m 100% telling sellers not to wait," Laricy said.

For some East Coast agents like Yolanda Muckle, fall has always been a busy season.

“My best time in the market has always traditionally been the fall,” said the Long and Foster broker, who specializes in Maryland’s suburban D.C. markets.

Although the recent interest rate dip is “helpful” for buyers, the agent said she often sells throughout November and December as purposeful buyers brave darker days and colder temperatures to close on a home before the end of the calendar year — for tax purposes, naturally.

“So, I’m ramping up,” she said. “You’re dealing with determined people with an agenda: They want to move.”

Overall, it's feeling like a “strong fall,” said Washington Fine Properties broker Liz Lavette Shorb, especially for houses that don’t “come out overpriced.” With one eye on mortgage rates, especially if the Fed cuts interest rates again, the broker is telling buyers to act on those listings now, saying, "Go now before it gets crazy again."

In New York, Daniel Gale Sotheby’s International Realty broker Patricia Moroney is seeing the signs of another active fall defined by “very, very low inventory” and “pent-up demand.”

“We are still seeing bidding wars,” said the Long Island broker. “We are still seeing a lot of cash … coming into our market.” But that’s not unusual, Moroney reported, it’s more of the same.

Even in July and August, often slower months as clients travel, a number of Moroney’s listings received multiple offers, as young buyers swarmed the market and older buyers looked for multigenerational space.

So, while the listing rule of thumb once emphasized spring as a time to sell, “I think that has changed in years past,” Moroney said. “There’s just such strong demand, and it has been that way for a number of years.”

But pricing is key to that demand, she emphasized. “If it’s overpriced, it’s going to sit because the buyers in the market are very educated.”

It would be nice if interest rates decreased a bit more, but high rates have “become sort of normalized,” she noted. “People are deciding that they have to get on with their lives.”