Fewer Deals, Fewer Agents, Smarter Buyers: Real Estate in 2026

For most agents, 2026 has been a year of grinding it out. Sales have hovered around a 4 million annual pace, mortgage rates moved the wrong way again in late summer, and the rules for working with buyers are now two years old and still settling in. At the same time, the agents who remain in the business are, on average, more experienced and more reliant on the relationships they have built.

Here is what the data says about the market right now, and what solo agents and small teams are doing about it.

A market stuck in low gear

NAR's latest existing-home sales report put September sales at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.99 million, up 1.5% from August but down 2.2% from a year earlier. NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun noted that August and September were the two slowest months for sales this year.

Prices are holding but barely rising. The national median existing-home price was $417,500, up 1.3% year over year. Inventory reached 1.60 million homes, or 4.8 months of supply, and the typical home sat on the market for 33 days.

Rates are the main brake. Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed average was 6.86% in September, up from 6.35% a year earlier, and Yun said further increases in recent weeks mean "fewer buyers can qualify to purchase a home." He also said more inventory and longer days on market are giving buyers more negotiating power, and that sellers need to be realistic about local conditions.

The lock-in effect is fading, slowly

The reason inventory has been so thin is well known: owners with cheap mortgages don't want to give them up. That is changing, but at a crawl. According to FHFA's National Mortgage Database, as summarized by CalculatedRisk, 50.6% of outstanding fixed-rate mortgages carried a rate under 4% at the end of 2025, down from a peak of 65.1% in early 2022. The share above 6% has climbed from 7.3% to 21.9% over the same stretch.

One visible side effect: people are staying put longer. In NAR's 2025 Profile of Home Buyers and Sellers, sellers had owned their home for a median of 11 years before selling, an all-time high. When listings come, they increasingly come from life events (a new job, a growing or shrinking household, a death or divorce) rather than a simple desire to trade up.

That matters for how agents prospect. The listing that arrives in 2026 often belongs to someone the agent helped years ago and hasn't spoken to since.

Two years into the new buyer rules

The practice changes that followed NAR's settlement took effect in August 2024. Agents working with buyers must have a written agreement before touring a home. The compensation in that agreement must be specific and objectively ascertainable, not open-ended, and agents can't receive more from any source than the agreement allows. Agreements must also state that compensation is not set by law and is fully negotiable. Offers of compensation can no longer appear on the MLS.

What has actually changed for consumers is less dramatic than many predicted. In April 2026, the Consumer Federation of America and the National Urban League released a report based on a survey of 223 housing counselors in 37 states, concluding that commissions have not significantly fallen since the settlement. As summarized by RISMedia, only 7% of the counselors said their first-time buyer clients were paying lower commissions than a year earlier, and two-thirds said their clients negotiated fees never, rarely or only sometimes. The same report flagged privately marketed "pocket listings" as an emerging concern for fair access.

How agents are handling it

The agents who seem most comfortable with the new rules treat the buyer agreement as a conversation about value rather than a form to get signed. In practice, that looks like:

Explaining, in plain language, what they do for a buyer and what it costs, before the first showing rather than at the door.
Putting their process in writing so the buyer can see it again later.
Being ready to discuss terms, since buyers are increasingly aware that fees are negotiable even if most don't push.

Expect scrutiny of pocket listings and off-market marketing to continue. Transparency is becoming part of an agent's reputation, not just a compliance item.

Fewer agents, more experienced ones

NAR membership stood at 1,439,163 as of June 18, 2026, compared with 1,463,352 a year earlier, still below its 2022 peak. The decline has been gradual.

The people who remain look like career professionals. According to NAR's member data, the median Realtor has 13 years of experience and is 57 years old, and 75% say they are "very certain" they will stay active for at least two more years. The typical individual agent closed a median of 9 transaction sides, with median gross income of $59,200. Teams are a growing model: 21% of Realtors were on a team, and team-based agents had a median of 32 sides.

The most telling number is about repeat business. The typical member earned 28% of their business from past clients, up from 20% the year before. For agents with more than 16 years in the business, it is about half.

Referrals still run the business

NAR's 2025 Profile shows how much of real estate still moves through personal networks:

43% of buyers found their agent through a friend, neighbor or relative (49% of first-time buyers).
18% of repeat buyers used an agent they had worked with before.
66% of sellers used an agent who was referred to them or one they had used in the past.
80% of sellers contacted only one agent, and most buyers interviewed only one.

Satisfaction is high, too. Ninety-one percent of buyers said they would use their agent again or recommend them, and 62% had already recommended their agent within a year of buying. Yet only 51% of sellers used the same agent for both their purchase and their sale. That figure jumped to 72% for sellers buying within 10 miles of their old home.

The lesson is uncomfortable but useful. Goodwill alone does not keep a client. When most people only call one agent, the one who stayed in touch and stayed top of mind gets the call.

Buyers are starting their research with AI

Buyers have long started online. In NAR's 2025 Profile, 46% said their first step was looking at properties on the internet, and 52% ultimately found the home they bought online. Photos (81%) and detailed property information (77%) topped the list of website features buyers found very useful.

Now a new layer sits on top of that search. A 2026 homebuyer survey from a major national bank, reported by NAR, found that one in five prospective buyers and current homeowners had used AI tools or chatbots for homebuying research, with higher shares among millennials and Gen Z. Their most common uses were estimating affordability and closing costs (57%), general education (55%) and researching neighborhoods and market trends (52%). A separate 2026 survey found that 44% of buyers would pay more for a human professional to verify AI-generated information.

Buyers are not replacing agents with AI. More than half in the bank's survey still preferred professionals for touring homes and contract guidance. What is changing is where the first questions get asked. AI tools draw on what is published, so agents with clear, accurate, local information about their listings, neighborhoods and process are better positioned to show up in those early answers.

Practical takeaways for small teams

Mine the past-client list. Long ownership tenures mean the next listing is often an old client with a new life event. A steady, useful touch beats a burst of mailers.
Make the buyer conversation tangible. A written, plain-language explanation of services makes the agreement easier to sign and easier to defend.
Respond fast and personally. When most people contact only one agent, the first real conversation often decides it.
Publish what you know. Neighborhood guides, honest market notes and complete listing details help both human searchers and the AI tools summarizing the web for them.
Ask for the review and the referral. Satisfied clients recommend agents, but they do it more reliably when asked.

Where we fit

We build AgentPortalHQ, an agent website and listing app designed around the realities above: staying in touch with past clients, answering buyers quickly and keeping your listings and reviews current. If you'd like to see how it fits a solo agent or small team, the details are on our real estate agents page.

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