2026 Market Outlook: Beyond the Headlines

We Were in the Room: What Gary Keller’s 2026 Market Update Means for Homeowners

The housing market isn't crashing. It's changing — and that distinction matters.

Our team was in attendance at Keller Williams Mega Camp, where Gary Keller delivered his annual State of the Housing Market address.

We make it a point to attend events like this because the market we are working in every day is bigger than what we see from our own listings and buyers. We want to hear directly from some of the smartest people in the industry, study the numbers and then bring that information home to our clients.

This year's message from Gary was not particularly cheerful. In fact, he warned the audience before he began that the presentation wasn't going to be fun.

But I found it valuable.

Because beneath all of the numbers and economic discussion was a pretty simple message: the housing market is not broken, but it is going through a major adjustment.

Buyers think it's 2008. Sellers think it's 2021.

One of Gary Keller's comments really stuck with me:

“Buyers think it's 2008, sellers think it's 2021.”

I think that perfectly describes the psychology of today's market.

Some buyers are waiting for another 2008 — expecting prices to collapse and hoping to swoop in at a huge discount.

At the same time, some sellers are still pricing their homes as if we are in 2021, when multiple offers, bidding wars and homes selling almost immediately were common.

Neither is an accurate picture of today's market.

Today's market is somewhere in between.

Buyers have more choices and more negotiating power than they've had in years. Sellers can still get very good prices, but they have to pay attention to what today's buyers are willing to pay.

That difference between what a seller wants and what the market will actually pay has become incredibly important.

The market is moving toward buyers — but prices aren't falling off a cliff

One of the most interesting points from the presentation was just how much the market has shifted toward buyers.

According to the data presented at Mega Camp, roughly 80% of U.S. metropolitan markets are now considered buyer's markets. There are currently 51.3% more sellers than buyers nationally, and price reductions are becoming increasingly common.

But here's the part I don't want homeowners to miss:

A buyer's market does not automatically mean falling home prices.

Keller Williams is still projecting approximately 5.4% national home-price growth for 2026, while existing-home sales are expected to total about 4.1 million.

What has changed is the amount of leverage buyers have.

A buyer today may be able to negotiate on price, ask for repairs, request closing-cost assistance or take more time to make a decision.

That wasn't the environment we were dealing with a few years ago.

The biggest problem is still supply

This may have been my biggest takeaway from Gary's presentation.

The housing shortage didn't suddenly disappear because interest rates went up.

Gary pointed out that new-home construction fell dramatically during the Great Recession and never fully recovered. His estimate is that the country would need approximately four years of building around 1.7 million new homes per year just to make up for the inventory that was never built.

That is a massive hole to fill.

And it helps explain something that can seem confusing:

How can we have a slower housing market and still have home prices that aren't falling dramatically?

Because we still don't have enough homes.

That's an important distinction.

What does this mean here in our area of Georgia?

This is where the national conversation becomes much more relevant to us.

The latest Georgia MLS numbers for the Atlanta metro show that our market is clearly becoming more balanced.

In July, Atlanta-area active listings were up 2.1% from a year earlier. Median sales price was $405,100, up 2.5%. But units put under contract were down 30.4% from July 2025, while closed sales were down 1.9%.

That tells me something important:

Buyers have more choices, but they are being much more selective.

And sellers have to respond to that reality.

A great house that is priced correctly can still sell.

A house that is overpriced can sit.

The market isn't necessarily telling sellers that their home is worth less. It may simply be telling them that buyers have enough alternatives now that they don't have to overpay.

Don't wait for the perfect interest rate

The other major discussion at Mega Camp was mortgage rates.

Rates remain in the mid to high-6% range, and there is no guarantee that they are going to suddenly fall back to the 3% rates many homeowners became accustomed to during the pandemic.  In fact, I’m willing to say we won’t see rates below 4% in the next 10 years.

But I think this is where buyers need to change the question they are asking.

Instead of asking:

“When will rates go down?”

A better question is:

“Does buying this home make sense for me at today's price and today's payment?”

If the answer is yes, there are opportunities in today's market that didn't exist two or three years ago.

If rates eventually come down, refinancing may be an option.

But you can't refinance a house you never bought.

And you can't go back in time and buy today's house at today's price.

The opportunity is in the individual situation

Gary's message wasn't that everyone should run out and buy a house tomorrow.

It was much more nuanced than that.

For someone who needs to move, has a stable income, can comfortably afford the payment and plans to own for the long term, today's market can make a lot of sense.

For someone who is stretching financially just to get into a house, waiting may be the smarter decision.

The same is true for sellers.

If you need to sell, today's market is absolutely workable. But the strategy has to be different. Pricing, preparation, presentation, marketing and negotiation matter more when buyers have choices.

What we're watching

There are several things our team will be watching closely:

Interest rates. This remains the biggest factor affecting affordability and buyer psychology.

Inventory. More inventory generally means more negotiating power for buyers.

Pending sales. This is one of the best early indicators of where the market is heading next.

Employment. Keller and his economists expressed concern about weakening job growth and declining workforce participation. A strong labor market is critical to a healthy housing market.

Local conditions. National headlines are interesting, but your real estate market is ultimately your neighborhood, your price range and your type of property.

That's something I think gets lost in national housing coverage.

Roswell is not necessarily the same as Atlanta. Alpharetta isn't necessarily the same as Roswell. A $500,000 home doesn't behave the same way as a $1.5 million home.

The bottom line

I left Gary Keller's presentation with a pretty simple conclusion:

It’s a different market, with different rules and different opportunities. We can make educated projections about the next 6–9 months, but anyone who claims to know with confidence what happens beyond that is guessing. 

For buyers, there is more negotiating power and more choice than we've seen in several years.

For sellers, there is still tremendous equity and strong demand for the right homes — but pricing correctly from the beginning matters.

And for both sides, trying to perfectly time the market is probably the wrong strategy.

One of the best lines from the presentation was that you're not necessarily buying at the top of the market — you're buying at the top of the moment.

 20 years ago in 2006, buyers felt like they were buying at the top of the market but history shows that buying at the top of the moment doesn’t mean you’re buying at the top of the market.  We all wish we’d bought properties in 2006.

Real estate has always been a long-term game.

Our job at The Curtin Team is to understand the market, tell you the truth about what we're seeing and help you make the decision that makes the most sense for your situation — not what the national headlines are telling you to do.

Markets will change. Rates will change. Buyer and seller behavior will change. What won’t change is our commitment to staying informed, staying ahead and giving our clients the straight answer — even when it’s not necessarily the answer they want to hear.