Potential homebuyers in Texas are asking for thousands of dollars less as the once-hot real estate market cools. The same is true in Southwest Florida, where homeowners are offering to repaint their homes to attract buyers.
Even a little prayer helps, said Emily Alspaugh of Grandville, Michigan. She buried a statue of St. Joseph in her backyard while waiting for a buyer to see her three-bedroom duplex.
“I made a mistake in listing the property at the wrong time,” said Alspaugh, who had been waiting for an offer for three weeks (and more to come). Her corner of suburban Michigan remains a relatively strong market, but it’s taking three times as long to sell a home there now compared to 2022. “It’s not going as well as I expected.”
An exclusive analysis of real estate data by Bankrate shows that the U.S. housing market has changed dramatically and unevenly since the pandemic, creating valuable opportunities for prospective buyers in unexpected locations. Homes built over a weekend four years ago can remain unsold for months in some areas. In other regions, the market appears to have remained the same or not changed at all.
“There are clear disparities in housing market conditions across the U.S.,” said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS, a leading listing service in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Bankrate’s Buyer Opportunity Index examines housing data for 100 U.S. metropolitan areas to show where purchasing power has changed the most over the past few years. Buyers have gained the most bargaining power since the pandemic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas, the study found. Chicago, Milwaukee, and New York have the lowest profits.
The changes reflect how local housing markets have responded during the coronavirus era, when hundreds of thousands of Americans moved from cities and lower interest rates sparked a housing boom, disrupting both supply and demand. In response, housing construction accelerated significantly in many parts of the country, especially in the suburbs and along the Sunbelt, as communities made room for thousands of new residents.
Now, prices have caught up with demand, and home sellers in former coronavirus-hit cities are competing with new homes that have recently hit the market.
“This is a necessary fix,” said Mike Hollow, broker-owner of Blue Line Realty SWFL in Fort Myers, Fla., and president-elect of the local Realtors Association. “We don’t like to see double-digit (price) increases. That’s a recipe for disaster.”
Biggest swing to buyer’s market
Bankrate’s Buyer Opportunity Index scores the 100 largest U.S. cities on four key metrics: housing supply, discounted listings (percentage of homes for sale in an area that have reduced asking prices), median length of time a home remains unsold, and median sales-to-listing ratio. We then ranked each according to relative market strength (100 being the strongest buyer’s market, 1 being the weakest) and compared how those rankings changed from 2022 to 2026.
To what extent are these market changes being felt at the local level? Let’s look at Colorado Springs. This picturesque city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains saw a four-fold increase in housing supply from February 2022 to February 2026. As a result, the influx of new housing took away bargaining power from homeowners.
Homes in Colorado Springs currently remain unsold for an average of 54 days, nearly 11 times as many as four years ago. Additionally, 25% of residential listings in the region have had their asking prices reduced at least once, up from 8% four years ago.
Patrick Muldoon, a Colorado Springs real estate agent who recently received an offer on a home that had been abandoned for 976 days, said the situation could be even worse in some cases. Muldoon recently told sellers to expect their homes to remain on the market for 90 days. This is nearly twice the time it typically takes to sell a home in his area. He also warns buyers that if they plan to live in their home for less than three years, it’s better to rent.
“There’s a lot of uncertainty right now,” Muldoon said. “Despite what everyone said, interest rates are going up, not going down. Unemployment is going up. And everything costs a lot of money. There’s no reprieve at all.”
Here are five metros that have experienced major shifts to buyer’s markets over the past four years.
Stable territory for sellers
At the other end of the spectrum, metropolitan areas with little population growth and sparse new construction experienced the largest declines in Bankrate’s Buyer Opportunity Index from 2022 to 2026.
This is not because conditions in the Northeast and Midwest metropolitan areas have changed significantly for sellers since 2022, but because Sunbelt markets have changed significantly in favor of buyers while remaining relatively stable. As buyers gain more influence in other regions, these regions have emerged as the most resilient sellers’ markets in the country by comparison.
Here are the five metros that have fallen the most on the Bankrate index since 2022:
Compared to the Sunbelt, these northern communities have experienced significantly different migration trends over the past five years.
For example, Chicago’s population decreased by 0.2% from the 2020 Census to 2025. And there’s almost no new construction happening there. Chicago has 10 times the population of the Northport-Sarasota-Bradenton market, but last year builders received fewer permits in the Chicago metropolitan area than in the much smaller Sarasota market.
As a result, the number of discounted homes in the Sarasota metropolitan area more than doubled over the past four years, from 11% to 26%, while in Chicago it increased only slightly, from 14% to 20% over the same period.
What you can do
During the pandemic, housing market conditions were similar on every coast. But now the advice for home buyers and sellers differs depending on where in the country you are buying or selling.
- For buyers in a seller’s market: If you’re shopping in areas that are still competitive, things haven’t changed much since the pandemic. Once you find a home you like, you should make an aggressive offer right away. You may not need to waive the home inspection, but you should still take the plunge if you want to buy a home.
- For buyers in a buyer’s market: On the other hand, if you’re shopping in Texas or Florida, you can afford to slow down a bit. There is plenty of inventory available, forcing sellers to consider the new reality by offering discounts and concessions. Working with a real estate agent allows you to tour many homes and patiently research the market.
- For sellers in a buyer’s market: If you’re looking to sell your home in the Sunbelt, prepare for a bad awakening. Expect your home to be on the market for months instead of weeks, and be prepared to sell for less than you think your home is worth.
Data reporter Alex Gailey contributed to this article.