Home Sales Are Falling Across America. These 10 Cities Are Holding Up Better Than The Rest.
Pending home sales fell sharply across the United States in September, but Nashville, Hartford and several other major cities held up considerably better than the national market, according to new housing data released Tuesday.
Contracts to purchase existing homes dropped 7.3% from August and 11.3% from September 2025, the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reported. All four major U.S. regions recorded declines, with higher mortgage rates putting additional pressure on prospective buyers.
Despite the nationwide slowdown, the latest figures revealed substantial differences among metropolitan areas. Data from Realtor.com Economics, included in NAR’s October 20 report, identified 10 markets where pending sales experienced relatively modest annual declines compared with the rest of the country.
Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro-Franklin, Tennessee, performed best among the 50 largest U.S. metropolitan areas, with pending sales falling just 2% from a year earlier. Hartford-West Hartford-East Hartford, Connecticut, followed closely with a 2.1% decline.
California accounted for the next two places. Pending sales in San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont declined 3.5%, while San Jose-Sunnyvale-Santa Clara, which includes much of Silicon Valley, recorded a 4.6% decrease.
Both markets stood out in a region where housing activity weakened considerably more sharply overall. Buffalo-Cheektowaga, New York, ranked fifth, with pending sales falling 5.6%, followed by Richmond, Virginia, where contracts declined 5.8%.
Texas also had two metropolitan areas among the strongest performers. Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos recorded a 5.9% annual decrease, while San Antonio-New Braunfels rounded out the top 10 with a 7.1% decline.
Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, ranked eighth with a 6.2% drop, followed by the Memphis metropolitan area, spanning parts of Tennessee, Mississippi and Arkansas, where pending sales fell 6.3%.
Together, the 10 markets illustrate how differently local housing markets are responding to the broader slowdown. However, their relatively smaller declines do not necessarily indicate stronger home prices, improving affordability or an increase in completed transactions.
Pending sales measure contracts signed between buyers and sellers before a transaction closes. Because most contracts are completed within one or two months, the figures provide an early indication of future home sales activity.
NAR Chief Economist Lawrence Yun attributed September’s weakness largely to rising borrowing costs, which have reduced housing affordability even as employment and wage gains continue to support potential buyers.
“Market conditions weakened in September due to fast-rising mortgage rates,” Yun said in the association’s latest release.
The deterioration followed a relatively stable August, when pending home sales increased 0.3% from July, according to NAR’s previous monthly report. September’s decline marked a significant reversal from that modest improvement.
The regional breakdown revealed the greatest weakness in the West, where pending sales fell 9.2% from August and 15% from a year earlier.
The South experienced the second-largest monthly drop at 8.2%, with contracts declining 12% annually. In the Midwest, pending sales decreased 6.5% from the previous month and 8.7% from September 2025.
The Northeast recorded the smallest monthly decline at 4.2%, although its pending sales were still down 9.4% from a year earlier.
The figures come as homebuyers face a combination of elevated borrowing costs and affordability challenges. Higher mortgage rates increase monthly payments for buyers taking out new loans, limiting the amount they can borrow without exceeding their budgets.
NAR’s existing-home sales data showed that completed sales increased 1.5% from August, although both August and September remained the slowest months for existing-home sales in 2026. NAR’s next pending home sales report, covering October activity, is scheduled for November 18.
