Pending U.S. home sales hit a new low, fewer homes under contract in Utah

SALT LAKE CITY — Pending home sales in the U.S. just fell to the lowest level on record.

For the four weeks ending Oct. 18, there were 281,749 homes for sale nationwide where an offer had been accepted, a 1.9% dip from the previous week and down 14.4% from the same period a year ago, according to the online real estate brokerage Redfin.

It's the lowest level of pending home sales in the country since Redfin began collecting data in 2021. All of the 50 most populous metropolitan areas in the United States (none are in Utah) saw a decline for the second week in a row.

The major cities and surrounding areas with the biggest year-over-year decrease in pending sales are Seattle, down 28.8% from the same four months in 2025; then San Diego, down 25.4%; Atlanta, down 23.8%; Denver, down 21%; and Las Vegas, down 20.6%.

In Utah, there were 719 homes under contract in Salt Lake County as of Thursday, down 16% from 855 on the same date last year, according to Dave Anderton, spokesman for the Salt Lake Board of Realtors.

Statewide, 3,191 homes were under contract as of that same date, down 18% from 3,903 a year earlier, he said, citing data from UtahRealEstate.com.

The Utah Association of Realtors reported that for September, the most current data it had available, there were 2,744 pending home sales in the state. That's down 26.8% from 3,748 pending sales in September 2025.

The National Association of Realtors also reported a record low for contract signings in September, according to Bloomberg. The national association's chief economist, Lawrence Yun, pointed to high mortgage rates as a cause.

"Market conditions weakened in September due to fast-rising mortgage rates," Yun said in a statement to Bloomberg. "Buyers and sellers may simply be holding back until mortgage rates move favorably."

Redfin's U.S. housing market update found that the nation's typical monthly mortgage payment is now up to $2,796, the second-highest level on record, even though the median home sale price was up just 0.2% year over year, to $390,614, during those four weeks.

Mortgage rates, however, are much higher than a year ago. After briefly dipping below 6% at the start of the year for the first time since 2022, mortgage rates have continued to climb after the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran nearly eight months ago.

This week, mortgage rates edged down a bit. The weekly average for a 30-year, fixed-rate loan in the U.S. dropped Thursday to 7.32% from 7.4%, according to the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation, better known as Freddie Mac.

But a daily tracker that made a similar shift Thursday, Mortgage News Daily, showed rates climbing again Friday.

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