The West experienced the largest decline in September, with pending contracts down 9.2% from August and 15.0% from a year earlier. The South followed with an 8.2% monthly decrease and a 12.0% annual decline.
In the Midwest, contract activity fell 6.5% month over month and 8.7% year over year. The Northeast recorded declines of 4.2% and 9.4%, respectively. No major U.S. region posted an increase in either comparison.
The national pattern did not translate into identical conditions in every city. Among the 50 largest metropolitan areas examined using Realtor.com Economics data, Nashville’s pending contracts decreased 2.0% annually. Hartford was down 2.1%, San Francisco’s metro area 3.5%, and Austin 5.9%.
Those metros had smaller annual declines than the national figure, but their figures still represented fewer signed contracts than a year earlier. The regional totals also conceal differences between neighborhoods, property types and price ranges.
For sellers, a decline in contracts points to a smaller pool of buyers completing agreements during September. For buyers, less competition may create negotiating opportunities in certain local markets, but the published regional numbers alone cannot establish whether a specific home is competitively priced.