By National Association of Realtors
Bad weather and fewer homes for sale may be bringing a deep freeze to the housing market this winter. Existing-home sales—including single-family homes, townhomes, condos and co-ops—posted a sharp 8.4% drop in January compared to December and were down 4.4% from a year ago, the National Association of REALTORS® reported Thursday. It’s a soft start to a 2026 housing market that had been showing promising signs of a rebound in the final months of 2025.
“The decrease in sales is disappointing,” acknowledges Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist. Also, a number of factors could be at play—and ones that home buyers may want to pay attention to.
The latest sales figures may be more of a blip than a long-term trend. After all, “the below-normal temperatures and above-normal precipitation this January make it harder than usual to assess the underlying driver of the decrease and determine if this month’s numbers are an aberration,” Yun says. Last month, prolonged freezing temperatures and major winter storms swept across the country.
