There were 57.9% more home sellers than buyers in the U.S. housing market in August, the widest gap Redfin has recorded since it began tracking the measure in 2013.
The brokerage’s Sept. 10 analysis counted 1,534,918 sellers against 972,300 buyers. Sellers rose 3.9% from July, which Redfin said was the largest month-over-month increase in its records, and reached their highest level since the start of 2020. Buyers rose 0.1%, from a July level that was the lowest on record.
The August reading breaks a record set the month before. July’s gap of 52.1% was the previous high.
Redfin builds the seller count from active MLS listings and estimates buyers using its own data on how long house hunters typically take between a first tour and closing, combined with listing and pending-sale counts. The figures are seasonally adjusted and subject to revision.
Ten Sun Belt metros at the top
Every one of the ten most buyer-friendly markets is in the Sun Belt, and four are in Texas. Nashville, Tenn., leads with 139.3% more sellers than buyers, followed by Miami at 138.3%, Houston at 130.9%, Orlando, Fla., at 121.5% and Las Vegas at 117.1%. San Antonio (116.3%), Austin, Texas (115%), Dallas (107.6%), Atlanta (95.6%) and Phoenix (94.8%) complete the list.
The imbalance is not uniform even within the region. Orlando’s gap widened from 100% in July to 121.5% in August, and Las Vegas moved from 102% to 117.1%. Miami went the other way, easing from 149% to 138.3%, as did West Palm Beach, Fla., from 81% to 64.9%, and Fort Worth, Texas, from 96% to 87.3%.
Redfin classifies a metro as a buyer’s market when sellers outnumber buyers by more than 10%, and a seller’s market when buyers outnumber sellers by more than 10%. By that definition, 36 of the 50 metros it analyzed were buyer’s markets in August, nine were balanced and five favored sellers.
This extends work the brokerage published in late August, when sellers outnumbered buyers in every major Texas metro in the July data. A month later the pattern has spread and deepened enough to set a national record.
Where sellers still have the advantage
Five metros remain seller’s markets: Nassau County, N.Y., with 27.6% fewer sellers than buyers; Newark, N.J., at 20.7%; Montgomery County, Pa., at 20.3%; Milwaukee at 17.7%; and San Francisco at 11.7%.
Scarcity shows up in price. Home prices in those five markets rose an average of 5.5% year over year, Redfin said, against 1.6% across the buyer’s markets. On our reading, that spread of nearly four percentage points is the clearest sign in the report that the seller-buyer balance is doing real work on values rather than just on how long a listing sits.
What it means at the negotiating table
“With sellers piling into the market and demand falling flat, today’s house hunters can afford to be choosy,” said Asad Khan, a senior economist at Redfin. “In most markets, buyers should negotiate on price and ask for concessions like repairs or help with closing costs.”
Khan paired that with a caution. “Buyers shouldn’t assume every seller will budge, especially on a desirable home that’s already priced well, but they don’t need to rush,” he said. For the other side of the transaction, his advice was to compete: “Work harder to stand out. Take stock of how other homes are priced, make sure your home is prepped and be prepared to negotiate.”
He also framed the pricing decision in terms of attention. “Pricing attracts attention. Overpricing creates hesitation,” Khan said, adding that sellers who want a quick sale in a market this crowded should price competitively from the start.
The pressure behind the numbers
The buyer count is the part of this that should worry sellers most. Listings have surged while the pool of active house hunters has gone nowhere, and that has coincided with rising borrowing costs. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 6.76% on Sept. 10, its highest since June 2025. As Khan put it, “even during a time when housing costs are elevated, the surplus of sellers over buyers makes it a good time to be a house hunter, in some respects.”
Closed sales reflect the same squeeze. The National Association of Realtors reported Sept. 10 that existing-home sales ran at an annual pace of 3.98 million in August.
A record seller surplus is an opportunity for anyone who can still qualify and close, and it is a problem for anyone who needs to sell in Nashville, Houston or Orlando this fall. More housing-market data and analysis is collected on RealtyWire’s housing market page.
