4 Ways to Keep Your Deals Moving This Fall

As the selling season wanes, sellers likely need harder conversations than they had earlier in the year. Buyers, meanwhile, are gaining leverage they might not know about.

“The best time to buy is when no one else wants to buy,” says Zillow Senior Economist Kara Ng. “If you can afford it financially, you’re more likely to have less competition, negotiate a better deal, and get more concessions.”

The latest data offers four ways to get unstuck: two cases to make with buyers, and two with sellers.

Tell buyers their range grew, before rates erase it

A median-income buyer putting 20% down could afford a $326,734 home in July without spending more than 30% of their income. In July 2025, the same buyer topped out at $313,234.

That's $13,500 in additional buying power for a median-income buyer. Only a sliver of it came from mortgage rates, which averaged 6.54% in July, below July 2025’s 6.72% average.

And home values barely moved. Most of the increase came from climbing incomes. It's an improvement that arrived without housing actually getting cheaper.

Consider: Most buyers assume a year of rising rates made things worse for them. Hearing their range grew is new information that’s not captured in the average consumer-facing real estate news. But rising rates could soon erase the gain. Buyers may weigh losing something they already have more heavily than something they might get later. 

Help buyers get to their shortlist faster

Newly pending listings, a leading indicator of demand, fell 7.7% from June, roughly seven times the decline in 2024 and 2025. They were up just 0.3% YoY, after June ran well ahead of last year.

Meanwhile active listings grew to 1.41 million in July, the 32nd straight month of YoY growth. For some buyers, the pressure to choose has also tempered: Homes that sold took 25 days to go under contract, five days slower than June.

A buyer who started looking in spring is now working a bigger list with less reason to commit to anything on it.

Consider: Every active buyer is worth more of your time now — and may take more of it. Cut their list down with BuyAbility.It filters to what they can afford at today's rates, and updates as rates move. Short of that, set a payment ceiling instead of a price range and re-run it as rates move.

Show sellers the importance of initial pricing

Homes taking 25 days to go under contract is only half the picture. The typical home that hasn't sold yet has been listed for 60 days. Last July those figures were 24 and 60. That split is also within a few days of what we saw before the pandemic.

Homes in July weren’t sitting because buyers vanished. They were sitting, and may still be, because they were priced for spring.

Consider: The seller's outcome is often set in the three to four weeks after the listing goes live. Use the listing appointment to illustrate how important it can be to list at the right price. Show them both numbers — 25 days and 60 — and ask which one they're pricing for.

Reframe price cuts as strategy

30.8% of homes that closed in June sold above list price. Last year it was 30.9%.

Sellers held too. The 27.1% cutting prices is up from June, but it lands three-tenths of a point below last July. Competition has concentrated around the listings priced to earn it.

Consider: If sellers refused to price properly at list, show them that cutting is what more than quarter of listings do around this time every summer. If their home isn’t getting attention, that’s social proof to help them rethink strategy.