US Existing Home Sales: 2026 Schedule, Dates and What to Expect

US Existing Home Sales measures the number of previously owned homes that changed hands in the United States, reported as a seasonally adjusted annual rate. It is published monthly by the National Association of Realtors (NAR), the trade body that collects sales data from multiple listing services across the country. The next release is on Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 10:00 am ET (3:00 pm London), covering sales completed in August 2026. This page carries the full 2026 release calendar, the methodology, recent readings and an ICS and Google Calendar feed so you can add every date to your own diary in one click.

Existing home sales account for more than 90% of all US home sales, which makes this the broadest monthly read on housing demand. It matters far beyond estate agents: housing turnover drives spending on furniture, appliances, removals and renovation, feeds into rent and shelter costs inside inflation data, and tells the Federal Reserve how much strain higher mortgage rates are putting on households. Full schedule and background: US Existing Home Sales dates.

2026 schedule

NAR publishes existing home sales once a month at 10:00 am Eastern time. The table below lists every 2026 release date confirmed on our calendar. Times shown are Eastern; note the switch from EDT to EST when US clocks change in November, which shifts the London equivalent from 3:00 pm to 3:00 pm GMT after both regions have adjusted.

Each release refers to the previous calendar month, so the September 10 report covers August 2026 closings. NAR confirms its dates on the official existing home sales page and rarely moves them.

What is US Existing Home Sales?

Existing home sales counts completed transactions of single-family houses, townhouses, condominiums and co-operative apartments that have been lived in before. It excludes newly built homes, which the US Census Bureau reports separately in its new residential sales release. Because existing homes make up the overwhelming majority of the market, this series is the standard reference point for the health of US housing.

The headline number is a seasonally adjusted annual rate, usually expressed in millions of units. A reading of 4.05 million does not mean 4.05 million homes sold in the month: it means that if the month’s pace continued for a full year, and seasonal patterns were stripped out, 4.05 million homes would change hands. Seasonal adjustment matters because housing activity is naturally much stronger in spring and summer than in December and January. Markets and journalists focus on the month-on-month percentage change and on the annual comparison with the same month a year earlier.

The release also carries three figures that often matter more than the headline. The first is the median existing home price for all housing types, which shows what the middle-priced home sold for. The second is total housing inventory, the number of unsold homes on the market. The third is months’ supply, which divides inventory by the current sales pace and answers a simple question: at today’s rate of selling, how long would it take to clear every home on the market? Anything under roughly four months has historically indicated a sellers’ market with upward pressure on prices, while six months or more suggests a balanced or buyer-friendly market.

Regional detail is published alongside the national number for the Northeast, Midwest, South and West. The South is by far the largest region by volume, so a sharp move there can drag the national figure even when the other three regions are stable. That regional split is one reason economists read the whole release rather than the headline alone.

How is it calculated?

NAR gathers closing data from multiple listing services (MLS) covering roughly 40% of the market each month, along with information from selected brokerages, and grosses this up to a national estimate. Because the sample is large and based on completed closings rather than on surveys of intentions, revisions to the previous month tend to be small compared with other housing series. NAR also benchmarks the series periodically against other sources, including sales that never appear on an MLS, which can shift the level of the whole history.

The key timing point is that existing home sales are recorded at closing, not at the moment a buyer and seller agree terms. A typical US mortgage takes 30 to 60 days from contract to completion, so the data describes decisions taken one to two months earlier. That makes existing home sales a lagging indicator of mortgage rates. If borrowing costs jump in July, the effect usually shows up in the August or September sales reports.

For a more timely read, analysts pair this release with NAR’s pending home sales index, which tracks signed contracts rather than closings and is published on the same day. Pending sales lead existing sales by roughly one to two months, so a weak pending number is often the first warning that closings will soften. The median price in the release is a measure of the mid-point of transactions, not a quality-adjusted price index: if activity shifts towards larger or more expensive homes, the median can rise even when the value of an individual house has not.

What time is it released and where?

Existing home sales are published at 10:00 am Eastern time, which is 3:00 pm in London, 4:00 pm in Frankfurt and Paris, 11:00 pm in Hong Kong and Singapore, and midnight in Tokyo. During the US winter months the Eastern time zone is EST rather than EDT; the 10:00 am local slot does not change, but the gap to London temporarily narrows or widens around the different clock-change dates in late October and early November.

The data appears on the National Association of Realtors newsroom and on its existing home sales statistics page at the same moment, accompanied by a press release, regional tables and comments from NAR’s chief economist. There is no lock-up or embargoed press briefing of the kind used for some government statistics, so the numbers reach wire services, terminals and retail platforms simultaneously. Because the release lands 30 minutes after the New York equity open, it can hit an already active market.

Historical series are also available free of charge from the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis FRED database, which is the easiest place to chart decades of data. Note that FRED reflects NAR’s revisions and benchmarking, so the level of older figures may differ slightly from the original press releases.

Historical data

The table below shows recent 2026 readings as first reported by NAR. Figures are seasonally adjusted annual rates in millions of units.

Source: National Association of Realtors monthly existing home sales news releases. Values are as first published and may have been revised.

Two features stand out from the recent record. First, the sales pace has been running in a narrow band around 4 million units, historically low by the standards of the 2000s and 2010s, when 5 million or more was normal. Second, prices have kept rising despite that weak turnover, because inventory remains thin. NAR reported the 37th consecutive month of year-on-year median price increases with the July 2026 data. That combination of low volumes and firm prices is the defining feature of the current US housing cycle, and it is driven largely by existing owners holding low fixed-rate mortgages who are reluctant to sell and take on a higher rate.

How do markets react?

Existing home sales is a medium-impact release. It rarely moves the whole market on its own, because by the time it lands, investors have already seen mortgage applications data, homebuilder sentiment, housing starts and pending sales for the same period. What it does is confirm or challenge the story those earlier indicators told.

The clearest reactions show up in three places. Housebuilder and building-materials shares, along with estate agency and mortgage-lending stocks, respond most directly, since their revenues depend on transaction volumes. Treasury yields can drift when the surprise is large, because weaker housing strengthens the argument for lower policy rates. And the dollar tends to follow those yields, softening on a clear miss and firming on a strong beat.

Trading Economics reported that the June 2026 reading of 4.09 million came in below expectations of a flat 4.20 million, while the July figure of 4.05 million on its revised basis was close to a market expectation of 4.06 million. That pattern is typical: a small miss draws commentary but little price action, whereas a move of 3% or more against forecast tends to be treated as genuine news about the demand for credit.

Traders also watch the price and inventory lines for inflation clues. Shelter is the largest single component of the US consumer price index, and while the CPI measures rents and owners’ equivalent rent rather than sale prices, a persistent squeeze on housing supply eventually shows up in rental costs. That gives this release an indirect link to the US CPI report and therefore to Federal Reserve policy.

Outside the United States, the read-across is thematic rather than mechanical. UK, European and Asian investors treat US housing as a barometer of how ordinary households are coping with restrictive interest rates. A visible freeze in American housing turnover has repeatedly coincided with weaker global risk appetite, softer commodity demand for copper and timber, and lower yields on gilts and bunds as global bond markets price a slower rate path.

What It Means for Your Money

You do not need to own a US property for this report to touch your finances. Here is how it filters through.

• Mortgages. Existing home sales does not set mortgage rates, but it influences the bond market that does. Long stretches of weak sales strengthen the case for central banks to cut interest rates, and expectations of cuts pull down the fixed-rate mortgage deals offered in the US, the UK and the euro area. If you are choosing between a two-year and a five-year fix, the direction of housing data is part of the backdrop your lender is watching.
• Savings rates. The same logic works in reverse for savers. Data that points to a housing recovery and firmer prices reduces the pressure on central banks to cut, which tends to keep easy-access and fixed-term savings rates higher for longer.
• Jobs. Housing turnover supports a long chain of employment: agents, surveyors, mortgage brokers, conveyancers, removal firms, decorators and builders’ merchants. A sustained slump in sales usually shows up as weaker hiring in those sectors within a few months, which is one reason economists cross-check this release against the US jobs report.
• Prices. When homes stop changing hands, spending on furniture, white goods, paint and garden equipment falls with them. That eases pressure on the prices of those goods, and because supply chains are global, the effect can be felt in UK and European retail too.
• Pensions and investments. If you hold a global tracker fund or a US index fund inside a pension or ISA, you own housebuilders, DIY retailers, banks and mortgage insurers. Housing data feeds into their earnings and, through interest-rate expectations, into the valuation of every long-duration asset in the fund.
• The pound, dollar and euro. Weak US housing that shifts rate expectations lower typically softens the dollar, which makes sterling and the euro stronger against it. That changes the cost of a US holiday, of dollar-priced goods, and of dollar assets held by non-US investors without a currency hedge.

Nothing here is a forecast. These are the channels through which the data can travel, and the size of the effect depends on how far the number differs from what economists expected.

Related economic events

• US CPI Report: consumer price inflation, including the shelter component that links housing costs to headline inflation.
• US Jobs Report: monthly payrolls and unemployment, the clearest read on whether households can afford to move.
• US GDP Report: quarterly growth, in which residential investment is a volatile and closely watched component.
• US PCE Report: the Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation gauge, and the series most relevant to the interest rates that set mortgage costs.

Frequently Asked Questions

When is the next US existing home sales report?

The next release is Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 10:00 am ET (3:00 pm London), covering August 2026 sales. The remaining 2026 dates are October 13, November 12 and December 9.

What time is existing home sales released?

Always 10:00 am Eastern time, which is 3:00 pm in London, 4:00 pm in central Europe and 11:00 pm in Hong Kong. That is 30 minutes after the New York stock market opens.

How often is it published?

Monthly. Each report covers closings from the previous calendar month, and NAR publishes its date schedule in advance on its housing statistics pages.

Where can I find the official release?

On the National Association of Realtors newsroom and its existing home sales statistics page. Full historical series are available free from the St Louis Fed’s FRED database.

How does existing home sales affect interest rates?

It does not set rates directly, but it shows the Federal Reserve how much higher borrowing costs are restraining households. Persistently weak sales support the case for rate cuts, while a strong rebound argues for holding rates higher for longer.

What was the last reading?

NAR reported existing home sales fell 1.7% in July 2026 to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.06 million, up 0.7% on a year earlier, with a median price of $434,100.