Pierce County November 2026: The Most Homes for Sale in a Decade

WHERE WE STAND GOING INTO NOVEMBER

A month ago I said the quiet months are the honest ones. This month I want to put real numbers behind that, because the late summer data explains this fall better than anything I could say about it.

The figures below come from two places. Realtor.com's county-level data for Pierce County, which the St. Louis Fed publishes in its FRED database, and Freddie Mac's weekly mortgage rate survey. I am going to tell you which month every number is from, because a number without a date is just an opinion.

THE HEADLINE NUMBER

In August, Realtor.com counted 2,956 active listings in Pierce County.

That is up from 2,457 in August 2025, an increase of about 20 percent in a year. It is also more than any previous month in their county data, which goes back to the middle of 2016.

So if this fall has felt like there is more to choose from, it is not your imagination. There is.

DID THE BUYERS DISAPPEAR

No, and this is the number I would pay the most attention to.

Pending listings, meaning homes that went under contract, came in at 1,244 in August. A year earlier it was 1,235. Essentially flat.

Think about what that means. Roughly the same number of buyers are signing contracts as last year. There are just about 500 more homes on the market competing for them. That is not a crash and it is not a collapse in demand. It is a supply story, and supply stories behave very differently from demand stories.

WHAT HAPPENED TO PRICES

The median listing price in Pierce County was $629,000 in August. That is down from $650,000 in July and this year's high of $652,450 in June, and about 1.6 percent below August 2025.

Two cautions before anybody panics. That is a listing price, not a sale price. It tells you what sellers are asking, and in a market where almost half of them are cutting, asking is not the same as getting. And a late summer dip is normal here. Last year the median listing price slid from $639,000 in August to about $622,000 by December.

So I would describe prices as softening at the edges, not falling off anything.

HOW MANY SELLERS ARE CUTTING

In August, 1,440 Pierce County listings had taken a price reduction. That is close to half of everything on the market.

Here is the interesting part. The share is almost exactly where it was a year ago. The number of cuts is up because the number of listings is up. Sellers are not panicking more than they did last year. There are simply more of them.

HOW LONG ARE HOMES TAKING TO SELL

Median days on market was 50 in August. That is up from 36 in May and from 46 a year earlier.

That number climbs every fall and winter here. Last year it went from 51 in September to 56 in October, 59 in November, 70 in December and 79 in January. Expect the same shape this year. A home that has been listed 60 days in December is not a failed listing. It is December.

WHAT ARE MORTGAGE RATES DOING

Going the wrong way for buyers, at least recently.

Freddie Mac's weekly average for a 30-year fixed rate climbed from 6.43 percent in the first week of July to 7.28 percent in the first week of October. It crossed 7 percent in the last week of September, the first reading above 7 percent since January 2025. A year earlier, in the first week of October, it was 6.34 percent.

I still will not forecast rates. What I will say is that this is exactly why seller-paid buydowns have become a normal part of negotiating here. When the rate moves against the buyer, the smartest sellers move the structure of the deal to meet them.

WHAT USUALLY HAPPENS NEXT

Inventory falls, and it falls hard.

Last year Pierce County went from 2,498 active listings in September to 1,753 in December, a drop of roughly 30 percent, and bottomed out at 1,533 in January. New listings did the same thing, falling from 1,078 in September to 448 in December.

Some of that is homes selling. A lot of it is homes simply leaving. Listings expire, sellers withdraw until spring, and very few people choose to list a house in the second half of December.

If this winter follows the same pattern, and I see nothing in these numbers suggesting it will not, the choice buyers are enjoying right now shrinks quickly between now and the new year.

IF YOU ARE SELLING INTO THE HOLIDAYS

You are competing with a lot of other homes right now, and with fewer of them every week from here on.

Price to the most recent closed sales, not to the asking prices around you. Consider offering a rate buydown instead of another small price cut, because with rates at 7 percent a buydown moves the buyer's monthly payment further than the same money off the price. Keep the house warm, lit and ready, because the buyers out in November are the serious ones.

And if your listing agreement is about to run out, make that decision on purpose rather than letting it lapse by default.

IF YOU ARE BUYING INTO THE HOLIDAYS

You have more choice than buyers here have had in a decade of data, and on last year's pattern it will not last past the new year.

Look hard at anything sitting past 60 days. Ask for the buydown and ask for closing costs. And get your pre-approval refreshed, because a rate that moved more than half a point since early summer may have moved your budget with it.

WHAT I AM WATCHING

Whether the September and October numbers show inventory rolling over the way it did last year. Whether pending sales stay flat or start to slip as rates climb. And whether all those price reductions finally show up in closed prices, not just asking prices.

My honest read: a buyer's winter for anyone who is organized, and a seller's spring for anyone who uses the winter to get ready.

If you want the context behind this, read last month's PIERCE COUNTY OCTOBER 2026 UPDATE. And if your listing is about to run out, my RELIST, REPRICE, OR PULL IT breakdown is the one to read first.