Market Update · August 20, 2026 · 8 min read
Freddie Mac's weekly survey landed this morning showing the 30-year fixed rate at 6.65%, down from 6.67% last week. Good news, right? Buyers should be rushing in.
Except they're not.
Redfin reported that pending home sales—contracts signed but not yet closed—dropped to their lowest level since March during the four weeks ending August 16. At the same time, new listings climbed 1.2% week over week, marking the fifth straight week of increases and hitting a three-month high.
So sellers are finally showing up. Buyers are backing away. And if you're trying to sell your house in Harford County or Baltimore County or anywhere across Maryland, DC, Pennsylvania, or Delaware, you're stuck in the middle of a very strange moment.
I spent Saturday at an open house in Bel Air. Gorgeous four-bedroom colonial, priced right, great bones. Six groups came through. Four were "just looking." One couple loved it but said they'd signed a contract on new construction in Fallston two weeks ago. The sixth? They asked if the seller would consider a lease-option because they weren't sure rates would stay this low.
That last question tells you everything.
People don't trust the trend. Rates dropped, yes—but they've been on a roller coaster since late July when Zillow noted that the 30-year Treasury yield briefly hit a 19-year high before retreating. (Treasury yields and mortgage rates don't move in lockstep, but they rhyme.) The underlying forces—deficit spending, oil shocks, inflation that won't quite die—haven't gone away. They've just paused.
Buyers feel it. They see 6.65% and think, "What if it's 7% next month?" So they wait. Or they low-ball. Or they ghost their agent after the third showing.
Meanwhile, sellers who've been sitting on the sidelines for a year finally decided to list. Maybe the roof needs work. Maybe the kids graduated and the five-bedroom feels too big. Maybe they just got tired of waiting for the "perfect" market that isn't coming. Redfin's data shows new inventory ticking up across the country, and I'm seeing it locally—more signs going up in Cecil County, more calls from Anne Arundel sellers asking what their house is worth, more listings populating the MLS in Prince George's County and New Castle County, Delaware.
But here's the puzzle: more inventory usually means more choices for buyers, which should mean more sales. Instead, we're seeing the opposite.
High housing costs and economic uncertainty. That's the shorthand Redfin used, and it's not wrong.
But let me translate that into what I'm hearing at kitchen tables in Howard County and York County, Pennsylvania.
Buyers—especially first-timers and move-up families—are stretched. Redfin also reported that housing and childcare now consume more than half of the typical U.S. family's income. In some metros, it's pushing 97%. Around here, it's not quite that dire, but when you're making $85,000 a year and daycare is $1,400 a month and a decent three-bedroom in Havre de Grace is $375,000, the math gets ugly fast.
Add in car payments, student loans, and groceries that somehow cost $200 every time you walk into the store, and suddenly a 6.65% mortgage rate doesn't feel like relief. It feels like another bill you're not sure you can afford.
So buyers hesitate. They tour homes but don't make offers. They get pre-approved but don't pull the trigger. And sellers—who finally worked up the nerve to list—watch their homes sit.
I talked about this dynamic a bit in my post earlier this week when inventory was creeping up and 42% of listings had cut their price at least once. That trend hasn't reversed. If anything, it's accelerating.
First, don't panic. But don't ignore the data, either.
Your house will sell. Good homes in good condition at fair prices still move, even in tight markets. But "fair price" is doing a lot of work in that sentence.
If you listed three weeks ago at the top of the range because your neighbor's house sold for $425,000 in May, you might need to rethink. May was a different market. Rates were lower. Buyer confidence was higher. Inventory was tighter.
Now? Buyers have options. And they're pickier than they were even a month ago.
That doesn't mean you have to give your house away. It means you need to be honest about what the market will bear today, not what Zillow said it was worth six months ago.
I've written before about the staging mistakes that cost sellers real money—bad photos, cluttered rooms, deferred maintenance that screams "project" to every buyer who walks through. Those mistakes are even more expensive now, because buyers have time to be choosy.
If your listing has been live for two weeks and you've had showings but no offers, it's not bad luck. It's feedback. Listen to it.
You have more leverage than you think.
Sellers are nervous. Inventory is building. Pending sales are falling. That means the balance of power is shifting—slowly, but it's shifting.
If you're pre-approved and ready to move, this is your moment to negotiate. Not on price alone (though that's part of it), but on terms. Closing costs. Repairs. Timing. A motivated seller in a cooling market will work with you in ways they wouldn't have three months ago.
And if you've been waiting for rates to drop below 6.5%, let me save you some heartburn: they might. They also might spike back to 7% if oil prices jump or the Fed decides to get aggressive again. You can't time this market perfectly. What you can do is find a house you love, lock in a rate you can afford, and remember that you can always refinance later if rates fall.
I covered some creative financing options—including rate buydowns that a lot of Maryland lenders don't mention—in a post earlier this week. Worth a read if you're trying to make the numbers work.
We're in a weird economic moment. The Fed is trying to slow inflation without triggering a recession. Treasury yields are bouncing around like a pinball. Oil prices are volatile because of global conflicts that aren't resolving anytime soon. And the federal deficit—well, that's not getting smaller.
All of that filters down to mortgage rates, which filter down to buyer confidence, which filters down to whether your house in Ellicott City or Lancaster or Wilmington sells in two weeks or two months.
Zillow noted that three Fed policymakers pushed for a rate hike at the last meeting, even though the Committee held steady. That's not exactly a vote of confidence that inflation is under control. And Mortgage News Daily pointed out that today's actual rates—around 6.76% for many lenders—are higher than last week's, even though Freddie Mac's survey shows a dip. (Surveys lag reality. Always have.)
So where does that leave us?
In a market where national trends matter, but local execution matters more. The Mid-Atlantic isn't Los Angeles or Phoenix. We don't have the same wild swings. But we also don't have the same inventory cushion or the same buyer pool. What works here is different.
If you're selling, price it right the first time. The days of testing the market with an optimistic number and waiting for someone to bite are over. You'll just burn showings and end up cutting the price anyway, which makes buyers wonder what's wrong with the place.
If you're buying, get serious about your financing before you start touring homes. Know what you qualify for, what you're comfortable paying, and what kind of rate buydown or concessions might make sense. Don't wait until you find your dream house to figure out the money part.
And if you're on the fence—thinking about selling next spring, or waiting to see if rates drop below 6%—just know that uncertainty cuts both ways. Waiting might save you a quarter-point on your rate. It might also mean you're competing with twice as many other sellers when everyone else decides spring is the magic moment.
If you've got questions about your specific situation—whether it makes sense to list now or wait, what your house is worth in today's market, or how to structure an offer in a shifting landscape—let's talk. I work across Maryland, DC, Pennsylvania, and Delaware, and I've been through enough market cycles to know that the best move is almost never "do nothing and hope."
You can also browse current listings to get a feel for what's out there and how homes are priced right now. Inventory is up. Buyer activity is down. That creates opportunity—if you know where to look and how to move.
This market isn't easy. But it's not impossible, either. It just requires a little more honesty, a little more strategy, and a lot less wishful thinking.
Katrina Kirton Sherrod, REALTOR® · Samson Properties · Licensed in MD, DC, PA & DE · 443-616-9770 · Katrina@kkstherealtor.com
“The problem with waiting for the perfect house is that someone imperfect already bought it.” — Anonymous open-house guest