Zillow’s estimate of the monthly payment for a buyer purchasing a typical U.S. home rose 12.8% in October from a year earlier, highlighting affordability pressure alongside a growing pool of listed homes.
The estimate reached $2,004 for a buyer putting 20% down, with property taxes and insurance excluded. It models a new purchase rather than payments on mortgages homeowners already hold. The October figure was 4.8% above September, Zillow’s largest one-month increase in four years.
Zillow also recorded a 16.8% annual drop in newly pending listings. That measure tracks homes moving from for-sale to pending status; it does not count completed purchases. Meanwhile, Realtor.com reported active inventory of 1,183,520 homes in October, 7.4% more than a year earlier. The flow of new listings was 7.5% lower over the same period. The figures extend EconoTimes’ earlier coverage of October’s growing inventory alongside fewer new listings and contract signings.
Sellers lowered asking prices on 20.5% of active listings. That share was 0.2 percentage points above October 2025 and 0.3 points below September, but still the highest for an October since 2022. Realtor.com’s delisting rate was 4.4%, compared with 4.6% a year earlier.
Realtor.com chief economist Danielle Hale linked weaker buyer activity to higher mortgage rates. Zillow chief economist Mischa Fisher expected a sharper contraction in November, followed by a slower pace of decline in the new year. CNBC reported that mortgage rates eased slightly in October but remained more than one percentage point above their year-earlier level.
