The Strongest Sign for the Housing Market in Years | June 2026 Update

**Dave Meyer** (0:00)
I'll say it, we're in a full on buyer's market for real estate. Sellers are watching their homes linger on the market longer. And that means you now have the leverage to pick up great deals and to negotiate hard. This may not be the trend you're hearing about in the headlines, but the data does support it. And now is the time to take advantage before everyone else gets the message. I'll share how I discovered this crucial recent shift, which regions are seeing the most positive trends, and what you can do about it all in the Bigger Pockets June Housing Market Update.
Hey, everyone, it's Dave. Welcome to the Bigger Pockets Podcast. Today on the show, we are doing our June housing market update, and this is going to be a great episode. I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised by some of the information that I'm going to be sharing with you. I know a lot of the mainstream headlines and narrative about the housing market is overwhelmingly negative, but I actually think there are some encouraging trends that real estate investors should be taking note of and should be using to guide your investing decisions. So I'm going to start the episode today by laying out the big important stuff up front, what's going on on a national level, the kind of stuff that impacts everyone. But then we're going to go into a regional update, we're going to share some trends that are going on across the country to help guide your decision making on your specific portfolio and your next deal. Then we'll move on to our risk report, something we do every month where we talk about potential stress in the housing market because that could create risk in your portfolio or it could create a national crash. So we're going to keep our eye on what's going on there. And then we'll end the episode by talking about what this means for you specifically. Let's get into it.
So first up, let's talk national big picture stuff going on in the housing market. The headline I want you all to take home today is it's actually doing okay.
I know that's not what everyone's saying, but that is actually correct. You heard it right. The market is doing okay. Is it great? No. Is it the healthy kind of market we wish we had something back in the 2010s? No.
But is it falling apart? Is something disastrous happening in the housing market? Absolutely not. That is not happening by a long shot. Instead, the big picture in the housing market right now is that we are in a classic buyer's market, which does come with risk, but also means a lot of opportunity for people who know what to look for and who understand what's actually going on. So that's the headline, but I'm going to share with you some data to back up what I'm saying here. Prices on a national basis, year over year, which is how we should be looking at housing market data, are basically flat. The Case Schiller, which is really good data, it lags a little bit, but that has us at less than 1% growth year over year in terms of pricing, at 0.7%.
And flat pricing is exactly why I've been calling the period we're in right now, the great stall, because we're in it. All of the market conditions that I've been talking about for years that are going to stall out home prices are happening. And flat prices is kind of exactly in line with my headline, right? Is it the best thing ever to happen for real estate investors? No, of course not. We're not getting the appreciation we saw for a decade or more, but it's also not falling apart, despite what people are saying. So prices, pretty stable and stable for real estate investors is good.
Same kind of story with inventory, and inventory is a super important metric. It's actually personally, I care more about what's going on in inventory trends, week to week, month to month and prices. I know prices are that sexy thing everyone wants to look at. But inventory is such an important number because it helps us understand the balance between supply and demand in the housing market. And when inventory is moving rapidly, that means a big shift in the whole market might be coming. And what's happening with inventory right now is it's also really flat. We actually see that it's down 1% year over year according to HousingWire. And the fact that it's flat and actually a little bit down is crucially important.
Flat inventory tells us that the balance between supply and demand is relatively stable. We are not all of a sudden seeing tons of people leave the market as buyers. We're not all of a sudden seeing a ton of sellers enter the market and flooding the market with inventory, which can push down prices. We're not seeing any of that. In fact, what we are seeing is a great stall. We're seeing inventory level up. And although there is opportunity for inventory to get better, in my opinion, again, this means stability. We are not seeing wild swings in inventory. And for investors, stability is a good thing. The other thing you should take away from this is that inventory being down a little bit is further proof that a crash is highly unlikely. If a crash was going to come, we would see inventory going up. That would almost certainly happen, either because the market was being flooded with homes or demand was leaving the market. But inventory is stable, which means supply and demand dynamics and prices are likely gonna be relatively stable for the foreseeable future. And there is other data that supports this too. It is not just the inventory number. Trust me, I look at everything and I'll just share with you quickly two other things that give me conviction about this, what the market is stabilizing right now, is one, new listings, the amount of people who list their properties for home for sale, is up, but just a little bit. Again, if there was going to be a crash, we would see that going up rapidly. But instead, we're seeing a few more people list their home for sale, but nothing crazy. And it's really, in a historical context, not really that high.