The Local Lowdown: January 2026

Michelle Kim | February 1, 2026

The Big Story

Quick Take:

As interest rates continue to fall, median monthly P&I payments do as well, making housing slowly but surely more affordable on a national scale.
Mortgage rates are currently at the lowest point they’ve been at in recent years, as the Fed continues its rate cut cycle.
Despite falling interest rates, inventories still remain higher than they were at this point last year.
We very briefly saw rates break the 6% mark recently, following some commentary from Trump regarding the purchase of mortgage-backed securities by Fannie and Freddie.

Homeownership is slowly but surely becoming more attainable

With the median monthly P&I payment hitting $2,056 in November, that marks a considerable decrease from the $2,311 maximum that we hit earlier in the year. As you might have guessed, this is largely due to interest rates declining, as the Federal Reserve continues its rate cutting cycle. In November of 2024, interest rates were at 6.79%, compared to 6.22% in November of 2025. This represents an 8.39% decrease in interest rates on a year-over-year basis, while the median sale price of a home in the US actually increased by 1.19% during that same period of time. As interest rates slowly creep down, we will likely see home values continue to increase, as the deciding factor for most people is not the total purchase amount, but instead the monthly payment that they can afford.

Mortgage rates fall to the lowest levels we’ve seen in years

As we mentioned in the prior section, interest rates continue to creep lower and lower. We saw rates hit 6.22% in November, and have fallen even further since then. As of right now, the average interest rate for a 30 year, fixed rate mortgage is sitting around 6.06%, which is actually a slight increase from what we briefly saw last week. Unfortunately, some recent commentary from the Fed has led markets to believe we won’t see a rate cut as a result of the January FOMC meeting, as CME FedWatch puts the probability of a 25 bps cut at just 5% for January. However, it’ll be important to pay attention to the economic data that’s being released over the coming months, as it’ll give us a good idea of where we can expect rates to go in the near term future.

Although mortgage rates are down, inventories are up!

While you might expect inventories to decrease as interest rates decrease, that wasn’t the case in November. In fact, we saw inventories increase by 7.52% on a year-over-year basis, despite falling rates. This is largely attributable to the fact that existing home sales decreased by roughly half a percent while new home listings increased by roughly 1.7% on a year-over-year basis. We’ll likely see inventories continue to increase as we move through the winter months, until the usual spring rush begins and inventories start to move once again. Overally, we had a very different year in terms of market dynamics in 2025, so it’ll be interesting to watch where the market goes in 2026.

Keep an eye on the market as we move through 2026

We’ve gotten to the point where rates have been so high for so long, that there is a considerable cohort of people that’s waiting on the sidelines, carefully watching interest rates. This cohort of people is ready to make a move on their first home, or is looking for a good point in time to sell their existing home and move. Lately we’ve seen quite a bit of commentary out of the Federal Reserve that has markets thinking we’ll see rate cuts, especially when you couple this with the commentary regarding interest rates coming from the executive branch. If we do see some steeper rate cuts (more than the 25 bps cuts we’ve seen recently), then moving quickly will be pivotal for you and your clients, as bigger cuts will likely lead to the floodgates opening!

Of course, this is all what we’re seeing at a national, macro level. As we all know, real estate is a localized game, so be sure to check out your local lowdown below, to see what’s going on in your market!