The Seasonal Shift in Hampton Roads | What You Need To Know
Hampton Roads-wide numbers, week of September 7, 2026.
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If you've been hearing the Hampton Roads real estate market is slowing down, the numbers tell a more complicated story. Let's compare where we are right now to roughly the same time last year. Right now we have 4,663 homes available for sale across Hampton Roads. Compared to 4,361 last year, that's about a 7% increase in inventory, which means buyers have more choices than they did a year ago. But here's where it gets interesting: the average days on market is actually lower than last year. We're sitting at about 45 days compared to 53 days last year. So even with roughly 300 more homes on the market, the homes that buyers want, priced correctly with a good marketing strategy, are still moving quickly. Pending contracts are almost identical year over year: 388 this week versus about 384 this time last year. New listings are also nearly identical, 517 this week versus 510 last year. So this isn't a market where buyers have disappeared. What has changed is competition among sellers. We had 402 price reductions this week compared with 381 last year, another sign that sellers can't just throw a number on a house and expect the market to accept it. How is September starting out? Compared with last week, inventory dropped from 4,740 homes to 4,663. New listings fell slightly from 527 to 517, and pending contracts dropped from 429 to 388. But closings, homes that actually closed, jumped from 260 to about 300. And the one pending-contract price category that increased this week was $700,000 and above, going from 30 to about 36. So my read on the market heading into September: we're seeing a seasonal slowdown with Labor Day and kids getting back to school, pretty normal, but the market is not falling apart. Buyers have more inventory and more negotiating power than they had during the pandemic-era seller's market. But good houses priced correctly are still selling, and they're spending less time on the market than a year ago. For sellers, pricing, preparation, marketing, and who you hire matter more than they ever have. For buyers, you finally have some choices and a little negotiating room. As we move further into September, I'll be watching inventory, pending contracts, price reductions, and interest rates very closely, because those numbers will tell us where the market is headed going into the fall. I'm John King with Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty, and I'll keep you updated with the actual Hampton Roads numbers, not just the national headlines. You can get me anytime at 757-270-3994, and I invite you to check out all of my resources at 757king.com.