Home Prices Will Inch Up. Where You’ll Pay Less.

(Stephen Brashear/Getty Images for Redfin)

Key Points

• National home prices are projected to increase modestly in 2026, with Redfin forecasting a 1% rise and Realtor.com a 2.2% gain.
• Mortgage rates are expected to average 6.3% in 2026, leading to a projected increase in home sales by 1.7% to 3%.
• Home prices are anticipated to fall in 22 out of 100 metropolitan areas, with Cape Coral and North Port, Florida, seeing declines of 10.2% and 8.9%.

It has been a tough couple of years for home buyers. Bargain hunters could finally get a break in 2026—if they know where to look.

Home prices nationally will rise modestly in 2026, according to two new forecasts. Redfin expects that home prices will rise 1% next year, while Realtor.com forecasts a 2.2% gain. In either case, home prices will grow slower than wages, improving the math for many households.

Both forecasters expect mortgage rates to average 6.3%. As home affordability improves slightly, so will sales, they say. Redfin expects a 3% lift in sales to 4.2 million, while Realtor.com calls for a 1.7% increase.

“After a challenging period for buyers, sellers and renters, 2026 should offer a welcome, if modest, step toward a healthier housing market,” Danielle Hale, Realtor.com’s chief economist, said in a statement. (News Corp, which owns Barron’s, also owns Realtor.com.)

Buyers in some places will feel more relief than others as local supply and demand trends cause prices to fall in some parts of the country and rise in others.

Prices in September continued to rise in northeastern and Midwestern metros tracked by the S&P Cotality Case-Shiller home price indices, and petered out in Sunbelt metros like Phoenix, Dallas, and Miami. “Regional performance reveals a tale of two markets,” Nicholas Godec, S&P Dow Jones Indices’ head of fixed income tradables & commodities, said at the time.

Of the 100 metropolitan areas for which Realtor.com forecasts sales and price trends, prices will fall below year-ago levels in 22. Two locales in Florida, Cape Coral and North Port, lead the metros in anticipated declines, with an expected 10.2% and 8.9% drop in home prices, respectively. As of October, the number of active listings in both metros was 13.3% higher than one year prior. That increase in options likely contributes to the expectation of softer prices.

In other parts of the county, prices will keep climbing quickly. The metros with the largest anticipated gains next year include Toledo, Ohio; Syracuse, N.Y.; and Scranton, Penn. Prices in these places are expected to increase a respective 13.1%, 12.4%, and 10.9% from the year prior.

Those gains will raise costs in some of the nation’s most affordable housing markets. Listing prices in October in all three metropolitan areas were below $300,000, according to separate Realtor.com data—well below the national $424,200 median.

Write to Shaina Mishkin at shaina.mishkin@dowjones.com