The median price of an existing home sold in July was $434,100, the National Association of Realtors reported, up 2.0% from $425,700 a year earlier and enough to extend the streak of annual price gains to 37 consecutive months. The increase came even as the pace of transactions cooled, with existing-home sales falling 1.7% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.06 million. For homeowners who have spent decades building equity, the split matters: values keep climbing even as the market slows, a combination that reshapes decisions about selling, downsizing, and the property tax bills tied to home value.
A 37th Straight Month of Price Gains, Even as Sales Slow
Total housing inventory in July was 1.54 million units, down 1.9% from June and down 0.6% from the same month in 2025, equal to a 4.6-month supply that held steady from both the prior month and a year earlier. A supply below roughly six months is still considered tight by most economists, meaning sellers keep pricing power even as buyer traffic thins. Homes also took longer to move, with a median 29 days on market in July, up from 28 days in both June and a year earlier.
Sales activity varied sharply by region even as the national total slipped. Month-over-month sales rose in the Northeast, held steady in the West, and fell in the Midwest and South, while year-over-year sales increased in the Midwest and West and stayed flat in the Northeast and South, according to NAR’s July report. Single-family home sales fell 1.9% from June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.69 million, still up 0.8% from a year earlier, while condominium and co-op sales held flat at 370,000, exactly matching last year’s pace.
NAR chief economist Lawrence Yun called the sales pattern “remarkably stable” given how long mortgage rates have stayed elevated. The average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 6.54% in July, based on Freddie Mac’s weekly survey data, down from 6.72% a year earlier but still far above the sub-4% rates many current owners locked in years ago. That gap between an old, low rate and a new, higher one is a large part of why so many owners have stayed put, keeping inventory tight and prices climbing.
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The Affordability Math Behind a 6.54% Mortgage Rate
NAR’s Housing Affordability Index registered 103.3 in July, up from 98.3 a year earlier, an improvement driven mainly by income growth and a slightly lower mortgage rate rather than any real relief in home prices. The gain was uneven by region: affordability improved 7.3% year-over-year in the West and 6.1% in the South, compared with smaller gains of 4.0% in the Midwest and 1.5% in the Northeast, the two regions where prices are already highest. An index above 100 means a household earning the median income can technically qualify for a median-priced home, though qualifying and comfortably affording the monthly payment are different tests.
The buyer pool reflects that squeeze. First-time buyers accounted for 29% of July sales, down from 33% in June, while cash buyers made up 26% of transactions, up from 25% the prior month. A cash purchase means a buyer without a mortgage payment to qualify for, a group that often includes retirees or near-retirees selling a longtime home and buying the next one outright rather than borrowing against savings at 6.54%. Individual investors and second-home buyers made up 14% of sales, down from 20% a year earlier, suggesting some competition for entry-level homes has eased even as ordinary buyers still struggle.
Distressed sales — foreclosures and short sales — held at 2% of July transactions, unchanged from both June and a year earlier, evidence that the current slowdown in sales volume is a rate-driven pause rather than the kind of forced-selling wave that marked the last housing downturn. That distinction matters for anyone holding real estate as a retirement asset: the equity built up over 37 months of consecutive price gains has, so far, stayed largely intact rather than eroding under distress-driven price cuts.
What Rising Values Mean for Owners Who Aren’t Selling
A rising median price is not only a number for people listing a home. In many states, the assessed value used to calculate a property tax bill is tied to sale prices in the surrounding market, so three straight years of gains in the median sales price can translate into a higher tax bill even for an owner with no plans to move. That mechanism lands hardest on a fixed income, where a property tax increase competes directly with a Social Security cost-of-living adjustment or a pension payment that has risen far more slowly than home values over the same stretch.
The regional spread in July’s data is wide enough to matter for anyone weighing a move. The median existing home sold for $563,800 in the Northeast, up 5.2% from a year earlier, and $622,200 in the West, up a more modest 0.2%. The Midwest median was $342,900, up 2.8%, and the South’s was $371,700, up just 0.9% — a gap of more than $280,000 between the priciest and least expensive region. For an owner weighing whether to sell a Northeast or West Coast home and relocate to a lower-cost region, that spread is now the difference between funding a decade of retirement expenses and merely covering closing costs.
Condominiums, often the smaller, lower-maintenance option many older owners downsize into, carried a median price of $371,800 in July, up 2.2% from a year earlier, while single-family homes rose 1.9% to $440,300. Both moved in the same direction as the broader market, meaning downsizing is no longer the discount workaround it once was. NAR’s next release, covering August sales, is due September 10, leaving open whether the 37-month price streak survives if mortgage rates eventually ease, or whether tight inventory keeps pushing prices higher regardless of what rates do next.
This article was drafted with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed for accuracy against primary sourcing before publication.
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