The Housing Markets Where Buyers Have Gained the Most Power
The clearest sign that buyers have more room to maneuver may not be found in home prices alone. It may be found in how long a listing sits before a seller accepts an offer.
In May 2026, homes in some major markets were still moving in less than a week. But in parts of Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and the broader Southeast, listings often took several weeks, or even more than two months, to go pending. That widening gap shows just how much the housing market has splintered since the 2022 frenzy.
Zillow data shows that the typical U.S. home listed for sale in May 2026 went pending after about 18 days. In May 2022, the national median was just six days, meaning the typical home was moving three times faster four years ago.
That shift marks a dramatic change from spring 2022, when competition among buyers reached one of the most intense points on record. Listings in many markets were claimed almost as soon as they appeared, with buyers trying to secure homes before mortgage rates climbed further and affordability worsened.
Today, the slowdown is most evident in parts of the Sunbelt.
The metros where homes took the longest to go pending in May 2026 were overwhelmingly located in Florida and Texas. Among the nation’s 250 largest housing markets, the 10 slowest-moving metros were:
- McAllen, TX: 79 days
• Laredo, TX: 75 days
• Naples, FL: 74 days
• Cape Coral, FL: 66 days
• Punta Gorda, FL: 66 days
• Brownsville, TX: 65 days
• Panama City, FL: 59 days
• Houma, LA: 58 days
• Port St. Lucie, FL: 54 days
• Ocala, FL: 54 days
Those numbers point to markets where buyers are no longer being pushed into near-instant decisions. Longer selling timelines can give shoppers more time to tour homes, compare listings, request repairs, negotiate price, or seek concessions from sellers.
That is why “median days to pending” is closely watched as a measure of local housing-market leverage. The metric tracks the typical time between listing and going under contract. Because that usually happens before the sale closes, the measure can reveal shifts in demand and inventory earlier than closed-sales data.
When the number of days rises, it can suggest that a market is softening or that sellers are facing less urgency from buyers. When the figure declines, “falling days to pending” can signal a market where competition is increasing, and available supply is being absorbed more quickly.
Florida offers some of the clearest examples of the change. In Miami, the median home took only 10 days to go pending in May 2022. By May 2026, that had stretched to 52 days. Tampa moved from 5 days to 34 days, while Jacksonville moved from 5 days to 43 days.
Other Florida metros also ranked among the slowest-moving markets in the country. Cape Coral, Naples, Punta Gorda, Port St. Lucie, Panama City, and Ocala all posted median times to pending of 54 days or more in May 2026.
Texas has seen a similar shift in several markets. Austin, one of the emblematic boomtowns of the pandemic-era housing surge, went from 11 days to pending in May 2022 to 41 days in May 2026. McAllen, Laredo, and Brownsville ranked among the slowest-moving markets in the country, each with a median time-to-pending of 65 days or more.
Across many of these metros, the longer timelines reflect a very different supply-demand picture than the one that dominated four years earlier. Inventory has risen in many Sunbelt markets, and the buyers still shopping are not operating with the same level of urgency that defined the pandemic boom.
The opposite pattern is still playing out in several inventory-constrained markets, where limited supply has kept listings moving quickly despite elevated mortgage rates.
Many markets in the Midwest and Northeast are still seeing homes go pending quickly. That has kept the pressure on buyers in places where there simply are not enough listings to slow the market in a meaningful way.
The fastest-moving metro among the nation’s 250 largest housing markets in May 2026 was Springfield, Illinois, where the median home went pending in four days. Several other markets followed closely behind:
- Springfield, IL: 4 days
• Kansas City, MO: 5 days
• Columbus, OH: 5 days
• Lancaster, PA: 5 days
• Anchorage, AK: 5 days
• Grand Rapids, MI: 6 days
• Hartford, CT: 6 days
• Richmond, VA: 6 days
• Cincinnati, OH: 6 days
• St. Louis, MO: 6 days
Several additional metros also recorded a median days-to-pending of 6 days in May 2026. They included Dayton, Ohio; Syracuse, New York; York, Pennsylvania; Reading, Pennsylvania; Manchester, New Hampshire; Peoria, Illinois; Ann Arbor, Michigan; Erie, Pennsylvania; and Topeka, Kansas.
The gap between the slowest and fastest markets is wide. In McAllen, Laredo, Naples, and Cape Coral, the typical listing lingered for more than two months. In Springfield, Columbus, Lancaster, Hartford, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, homes were still going under contract in under a week.
That divide also shows up when comparing current conditions with the 2022 market peak.
Chicago’s median days to pending increased only slightly, from six days in May 2022 to eight days in May 2026. Philadelphia moved from seven days to nine days. Boston went from six days to eight days. Cincinnati rose from three days to six days.
Those modest increases stand in sharp contrast to the jumps seen in Miami, Tampa, Jacksonville, Austin, and other former boom markets. The comparison suggests that the national cooldown has been shaped less by a single housing-market reset than by a patchwork of local inventory conditions.
For sellers, the data shows that pricing strategy now matters far more in markets where listings are lingering. A home that might have drawn multiple rapid offers in 2022 may now need to compete with a larger pool of available listings, especially in metros where inventory has expanded.
For buyers, that means the experience can look completely different from one metro to another. In slower-moving markets, shoppers may have more room to negotiate or take time before making an offer. In faster-moving markets, limited supply can still make the process feel competitive.
Four years after homes routinely went under contract within days, the U.S. housing market is moving at a much slower pace nationwide. But the slowdown is concentrated most heavily in parts of Florida, Texas, Louisiana, and the broader Southeast. In McAllen, Laredo, Naples, and Cape Coral, listings are lingering long enough for buyers to have meaningful room to negotiate. In Springfield, Columbus, Lancaster, Hartford, Cincinnati, and St. Louis, the clock is still ticking quickly.
Moumita Basuroychowdhury is a Contributing Reporter at The National Digest. After earning an economics degree at Cornell University, she moved to NYC to pursue her MFA in creative writing. She enjoys reporting on science, business and culture news. You can reach her at moumita.b@thenationaldigest.com.
