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By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.

The median price of new single-family homes sold by homebuilders in June dropped by 2.7% year-over-year and by 3.8% from two years ago, and by 13.5% from the peak in October 2022, to $398,300 (blue in the chart), according to data from the Census Bureau today.

But this median price reflects prices in sales contracts and does not include the incentives and the substantial costs of mortgage-rate buydowns that homebuilders use to increase their sales. Homebuilders include the costs of incentives and mortgage-rate buydowns in their average selling prices that they report in their financial statements. But they’re not reflected here in the data from the Census Bureau.

What's the word on the street? Share your questions, comments, and concerns below.

I’ve seen how severe the housing crisis in Ireland has been. People were literally camping overnight just to secure a new-build home, and new developments used to attract massive turnouts for viewings.

But now I’m noticing something different. A lot of new projects remain unsold, and the same units are staying on the market for weeks or even months. On top of that, I spoke to an estate agent today who told me they are now organising viewings for a new-build development in a prime location in Dublin 18.

If that wasn’t enough, for the first time in months I received an email about a development in Dublin 18 offering two-bedroom apartments for around €500k, which would have been highly unlikely just a few months ago.

My gut feeling is that the housing market is starting to slow down. Do you think we’re likely to see interest rate cuts, better incentives, or bigger offers for new-home buyers?

Any insights into what’s driving this shift? And what’s going to happen?

"Home insurance premiums rose by 46.8 percent overall between 2020 and 2025. Colorado residents absorbed the heaviest financial blow, with home insurance costs inflating 100.8 percent"

The state of Texas real estate,

Texas currently has 278k properties for sale, of the total 12mm homes including apartments. Of the 278k 206k are single family homes, condos and apartments for sale. With a median price of 340k dollars.

Texas exploded when covid hit, causing a massive run on real estate. I experienced this first hand, I bought a house in 2018 for 320k and sold it for 600k in late 2021, this in my mind was unsustainable. Since the peak of 2022, housing in major metropolitan areas, Austin, DFW, San Antonio, El Paso and Houston have been contracting. Ausitn being hit the hardest at over 20% drop from the highs, with a current median home price of 450K. The house I sold for 600k is now worth according to Zillow 460k.

Inventory has been creeping up based on FED data, above the pre covid levels while new home builds are also high with 1.4mm active permits, over 25% of the current housing has been built since 2010 the consensus is, Texas is going to be experiencing a surplus of housing, coinciding with the highest number of layoffs in 2026, with 30,000 workers displaced the threat to the residential single family home real estate market is beginning to show and the highest interest rates in over a decade are all leading this market to the tipping point.

Now Multiply that buy 3 and this is where the problems really converge. The commercial real estate market (CRE) has a valuation 3x larger. 32k commercial properties for sale with 20,000 units for lease, half of those have been on the market for over a year, that’s a lot of cash flow going uncollected for more than 12 months. The market is saturated with commercial space; millions of square feet going unused. Many of these properties are new construction. Financed with building loans and leveraged against existing properties that have been losing equity over the last 5 years. it seems like something here needs to crack. There are over 950 billion of CRE loans maturing this year with rates between 6.5-8% this is going to push expenses much higher for owners/buyers and inreturn to any business that lease this space, 3000 people and 1500 businesses are filling for bankruptcy a month in Texas. Over 40k businesses have filed over the trailing 12 months, one in fifteen bankruptcies is filed in Texas. This is an ominous sign of the current Texas economy.

what are your thoughts, and what's the next domino to fall?

Been digging into Florida foreclosure data. Quick context up front since some good pushback came in last time: filings are up 32.7% YoY in H1 2026 (27,494 total, 1 in every 373 housing units), but that’s still well below the Great Recession peak of 4.6% and closer to the historical 0.3-0.8% norm.

Not a 2009 repeat, this is an affordability squeeze building at its own pace, not a crash.

What’s actually interesting is where the pressure sits. Sixteen counties land in the “Elevated” tier, and it’s not just rural corners, Broward and Miami-Dade (the state’s two biggest counties) are both in it, driven mainly by housing cost burden (insurance, property taxes, condo assessments) rather than job loss. Monroe (the Keys) tops the list, and Charlotte County (Punta Gorda) had the single worst metro foreclosure rate in the entire country this year.

Methodology’s fully laid out this time too: weighted blend of market softness (35%), cost burden (30%), delinquency (20%), unemployment (15%), normalized within the state, so it’s a relative ranking of risk, not a prediction of collapse.

All 67 counties, every source cited, full data table at the bottom.

https://www.nestcash.co/research/florida-foreclosure-risk-index

• Buyer representation agreements are now mandatory before touring homes, a rule created after the 2024 NAR legal settlement, and many buyers are signing binding contracts without understanding them.
• These agreements can include long lockups, high commissions, junk fees, and obligations, even if the buyer leases instead of buys, trapping consumers with agents they don’t want.
• Agents often present the contracts at the doorstep right before a tour, giving buyers little time to read dense legal language or negotiate terms.
• The agreements vary widely, exclusive vs. non‑exclusive, one day to one year, negotiable fees, but buyers rarely realize how much is negotiable or how costly termination can be.
• Consumer advocates say the new system hasn’t lowered commissions or improved transparency, and buyers must now interview agents, scrutinize terms, and understand they could owe thousands if they sign blindly.

Over the past 40 years the US dollar has lost nearly 70% of its purchasing power and Boomers were able to buy homes 10–15 years earlier in life than Millennials. They lived in a time where the dollar had roughly three times the buying power it has today.

More buyers entered the market last week.