DFW Pending Sales Just Hit Their 2026 Low: What a Quiet November Actually Means for Buyers and Sellers
Buyers are still out there in Dallas-Fort Worth. Fewer of them are signing contracts than at any point this year — and that single fact changes the math for everyone planning a move before the holidays.
Weekly tracking of the North Texas MLS (NTREIS) shows pending sales fell to 902 in Week 44 of 2026, the first week under 1,000 all year. The last four weeks are the four lowest of the year, averaging 982 a week. In the spring, that average was 2,014. This is not a one-week blip: the four-week average for pending sales has now fallen nine weeks in a row.
Before anyone reads too much into one number, here is the honest context. Part of this is the season — fewer people buy and sell heading into the holidays, every year. Part of it is the cost of borrowing. And part of it is a market that is genuinely cooling from the demand side, not just the supply side. All three matter, and they point to different decisions depending on which side of the table you sit on.
The pipeline is not refilling
The most telling number is not pending sales themselves but the contracts that feed them. In Texas, a sale starts with an option contract, and option contracts averaged 865 a week over the last four weeks — down 12.6% from the four weeks before that, and 37% below the spring pace.
Closings are following the pipeline down, averaging 1,148 a week, down 9.2%. With fewer contracts behind them, closings should keep sliding into November. That is not a prediction of a crash; it is arithmetic. Fewer contracts signed today means fewer closings next month.
Meanwhile, the national picture tells the same story. Redfin data for the four weeks ending October 25 put the U.S. median sale price at $389,601, down just 0.1% from a year earlier, while pending sales fell to 276,352 on a seasonally adjusted basis — the lowest in records going back to 2021, and down 15.9% year over year. The National Association of Realtors reported September pending home sales down 7.3% from August and 11.3% from a year earlier. DFW is not an outlier here. It is participating in a national slowdown.
Prices are not falling much — but sellers are cutting more often
Here is the part that confuses people. If demand is this soft, why are prices not dropping? Because sellers are adjusting quietly, one price cut at a time, rather than all at once.
Over the last four weeks, DFW saw 1.54 price cuts for every new listing. That ratio has held between 1.51 and 1.58 since late August; in the spring it ran about one to one. Price cuts averaged 2,839 a week, down 6.1% — sellers are not cutting harder. New listings fell faster, down 8.0% to 1,841 a week, and last week's 1,654 was the second-lowest week of 2026.
For buyers, the result is the same either way: for every fresh listing that appears, roughly one and a half homes already on the market just got cheaper. And the September MetroTex numbers confirm the pattern at the monthly level: the median sale price was $379,990, down 1.6% from a year earlier, with 4.5 months of supply, and sellers closed at about 93.9% of their original asking price — roughly 6% under where they started.
So no, this is not a market where list prices are collapsing. It is a market where the asking price is increasingly just an opening position.
Deals are holding together — but fewer reach the finish line
Two more numbers deserve attention because they are easy to misread.
First, contracts are holding about as well as before. About 37 homes came back on the market for every 100 that went under option over the last four weeks — the same as the four weeks before, though up from 31 in the spring. One week even looked better, with 287 homes back on the market, the second-lowest week of 2026. But one good week is a blip until a second one confirms it, and the broader trend still says more than one in three contracts comes back.
Second, expired and canceled listings hit 88 for every 100 closings over the last four weeks — the highest four-week reading of 2026, up from 37 in the spring. That sounds like sellers giving up in droves. It is not. Cancellations actually fell 8.4%, to 642 a week. The ratio climbed because closings fell. About as many sellers are giving up as before; fewer are crossing the finish line.
Nationally, Redfin reported that 14.5% of homes under contract in September saw their deals canceled, one of the highest rates on record outside the early pandemic months. If a home you like just came back on the market, ask the listing agent why before assuming something is wrong with the house — the deal may have fallen apart over financing, appraisal, or a buyer getting cold feet, not over the property itself.
Rates helped a little, and that little was not enough
Freddie Mac's weekly survey put the average 30-year fixed rate at 7.24% for the week ending October 29, down from 7.32% the week before and 7.40% before that — two straight weekly declines. A year ago it was 6.17%.
That dip has not yet shown up in buyer behavior. In the week ending October 16, the Mortgage Bankers Association's 30-year rate slipped to 7.41%, and purchase applications still fell 7% for the week and 18% from a year earlier. The honest read: 7.24% is better than 7.40%, but it is still more than a full point above a year ago, and it does not fix the affordability gap on its own. Realtor.com's housing mismatch analysis found just 10.2% of DFW homes listed for sale affordable for a household earning around $75,000 a year.
A small rate decline is a reason to run your numbers again, not a reason to rush.
What this means if you are buying
You have less competition than at any point this year. The seller of the house you like most probably is not juggling other offers, and the house has likely been sitting long enough that its seller has already watched neighbors cut prices. That gives you room to negotiate on things that matter more than a few thousand dollars off the price:
Ask for repairs to be completed before closing, not credited and left for later.
Ask for closing-cost credits or a rate buydown, which can matter more to your monthly payment than a small price reduction.
Ask for a longer option period so your inspection is thorough, not rushed.
If the payment fits your budget today, write an offer that asks for what you need — do not wait for a rate drop that may not come, and do not assume you can refinance later at a lower rate. Refinancing is a possibility, not a plan.
One warning that cuts the other way: less competition today does not mean a bargain tomorrow. Well-priced homes in good school zones still move, and if rates fall meaningfully in the spring, the buyers sitting out now will return at the same time. Buying in a quiet market is an advantage only if you actually buy.
What this means if you are selling
Every buyer who walks through your house counts more right now, because there are fewer of them, and each one is comparing your home with thousands that just cut their price. Price against today's competition from day one, not against what your neighbor got in the spring. A home priced for last season's market does not sit and wait for the market to catch up — it sits while buyers assume something is wrong with it, and then it sells for less than it would have at the right price in week one.
If you do not need to move before spring, pause and run the numbers on waiting — but be honest about what waiting costs: carrying costs, another winter of showings, and no guarantee that spring brings better conditions. If you do need to sell this fall, keep taking backup offers through the option period, because more than one in three contracts still comes back, and a backup offer is the cheapest insurance a seller can have.
The bottom line
DFW's housing market in early November is slow, not broken. Buyers have leverage they have not had all year, sellers who price honestly still sell, and the numbers that look alarming — the 88 expired listings per 100 closings, the sub-1,000 pending week — are mostly the arithmetic of fewer deals, not a wave of distress. The risk for buyers is waiting so long for a perfect rate that they miss a negotiable market. The risk for sellers is pricing for a market that no longer exists. Both risks are avoidable, and both start with looking at this week's numbers instead of last spring's headlines.
Sources: NTREIS weekly tracking via Your Property Geek (Week 44, 2026); MetroTex Association of Realtors September 2026 report; Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey (weeks ending October 22 and 29, 2026); Mortgage Bankers Association weekly survey (week ending October 16, 2026); Redfin four-week data ending October 25, 2026; National Association of Realtors pending home sales (September 2026); Realtor.com Housing Mismatch Report.
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