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The national market turned in August, the Fed raised rates this week, and our region quietly stopped behaving as one market. Only one of those three should change what you do this fall.
Every month I read the national releases, the regional breakdowns, and our local MLS data, looking for the one thing worth someone’s time. This month there were three: the country turned, the Federal Reserve raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, and our region stopped behaving as a single market.
Only the third one should change how you price a house. Let me explain why.
The national turn is real
For three years the honest description of the national housing market was “flat, but holding.” In August it stopped holding.
Existing-home sales fell 2.0% from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 3.98 million — below four million for the first time this cycle, and 1.2% below August of last year. Single-family sales dropped 1.9% to 3.62 million; condo and co-op sales fell 2.7% to 360,000. Homes took a median of 31 days to sell, up from 29 in July.
The more consequential number is supply. There were 1.62 million homes for sale at the end of August, up 5.9% year over year, representing a 4.9-month supply. NAR’s chief economist Lawrence Yun described that as the highest months’ supply in over ten years. Independent data from ResiClub puts active listings at 1,140,035, up 3.8% year over year — though that growth has slowed sharply from the 20.8% pace of a year earlier, and national supply remains 7.7% below August 2019.
Prices are still rising, barely. The national median reached $429,100, up 1.6% from last August — the 38th consecutive month of annual gains, but the slowest pace of the run. And mortgage rates kept climbing: the 30-year fixed averaged 6.67% across August and has since reached 6.76%.
Greater Cincinnati went the other direction
Across Butler, Clermont, Clinton, Hamilton and Warren counties, 1,741 homes sold in August, up 1.9% from a year ago. The median sale price rose 4.5% to $329,000. Total sold volume rose 7.2% to $693.1 million. Year to date, our median is up 4.9% and volume is up 7.1%.
The structural reason is supply, and the contrast is stark. The United States has 4.9 months of inventory. Ohio has 3.72. Northern Kentucky has 2.2. Greater Cincinnati’s single-family and condo supply is 1.9 months.
That gap is why the national conversation about buyer leverage translates so poorly here. Our median time on market in August was ten days.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency’s purchase-only index confirms the strength from a different angle: Cincinnati house prices rose 3.2% over the year ending in the second quarter of 2026, ranking our metro 28th out of the top 100 — up from 58th just one quarter earlier, one of the larger moves in the index.
Across the river, Northern Kentucky posted the strongest price growth in the region: a median of $319,950, up 6.7% from $300,000, on 534 sales. It was also the only part of our market where supply actually tightened, falling to 2.2 months from 2.5.
Now the part that matters
Here is where the regional average stops being useful.
Warren County sold 307 homes in August, up 21.8% from last August, at a $404,500 median that was essentially flat.
Clermont County sold 234, up 10.9%, at a $332,500 median, up 3.9%. Its active inventory is up 35.1% and new listings up 35.5% — by far the largest supply increases in the region — and yet homes there still sell in a median of seven days, the fastest of the four counties.
Hamilton County sold 796, down 2.2%, at a $280,000 median that fell 1.1%. New listings there are down 5.9%.
Butler County sold 352, down 9.0% — but its median price rose 5.8% to $338,500.
Four counties, four different stories, in one month, under identical mortgage rates.
This is the K-shape, arriving locally
Nationally, the housing market has split by price point rather than by geography. NAR’s data shows sales of homes priced over $1 million up 14.8% year over year, and homes between $750,000 and $1 million up 11.1%. Sales below $250,000 are down. Zillow measured the same divide from the other side: starter-home sales fell 5.4% year over year while luxury sales grew 6.2%.
The cause isn’t mysterious. Stock-market gains have strengthened purchasing power at the top of the income distribution, while slower hiring and elevated everyday costs weigh on the households who would otherwise be buying their first home. Realtor.com’s Hannah Jones put it bluntly: the entry-level tier “isn’t stabilizing. It’s still the fastest-declining segment nationally in both periods we measured, and it got worse, not better, heading into 2026.”
Now look at our counties again. Warren, our highest-priced county, grew volume 21.8%. Hamilton, our most affordable, lost volume and lost price. That is the same pattern, at local scale.
There’s a supply-side echo too: new-construction single-family closings across our MLS fell 15.84% year over year, against just 1.2% for existing homes. Builders pulling back tightens tomorrow’s entry-level supply, which is precisely the segment already under strain.
What I’d actually do with this
If you’re selling, your county is now the relevant benchmark, not the region. In Warren and Clermont, demand is genuinely strong and buyers are showing up in numbers — price to the market and expect activity. In Butler, there are fewer buyers but the ones transacting are paying more, so preparation and presentation carry unusual weight. In Hamilton, with the median down 1.1% and new listings down 5.9%, realistic pricing from day one isn’t a concession; it’s the strategy.
And know your equity position before you decide anything. The average American homeowner now holds $310,500 — the highest Cotality has ever recorded, up from $295,000 at the end of last year. In Ohio the average is roughly $181,000, in Kentucky roughly $161,000. Homeowners are starting to use it: equity withdrawals rose 10% in a single quarter.
If you’re buying, the seasonal math is genuinely on your side right now. Averaged over the past decade, autumn — not spring — has the most active listings of any season: 994,707 on average in September through November, against 983,198 in summer. Homes take about a week longer to sell, giving you room to think. Median list prices fall roughly $26,000 from their summer peak. And sellers cut prices more often in the fall than in any other season, a trend already running hot this year — listings with price cuts have risen every single month of 2026, from 223,000 in January to 404,000 in July.
Locally, temper that. You have more choice than you had in June, with active inventory up 6.8%. You do not have a leisurely market. Ten days is still ten days.
The Fed raised rates — and it matters less than it sounds
On Wednesday afternoon the Federal Open Market Committee raised its benchmark rate by a quarter point to 3.75%–4.00%. It was the first increase since July 2023, and the vote was unanimous across all twelve members. The statement said the move “will support a timelier return to the Committee’s 2 percent goal.”
It is not expected to be the last. In the projections released alongside the decision, 18 of the 19 officials who submitted forecasts expect another quarter-point increase before the end of this year, and four think rates may need to rise a half point more. The Fed now projects PCE inflation ending this year at 3.7% and core inflation at 3.4%, both revised upward, and does not expect to reach 2% until 2029.
Now the part that actually affects a homebuyer.
The federal funds rate is an overnight rate between banks. A 30-year mortgage is priced off the 10-year Treasury yield plus a lender spread that has averaged roughly 1.76 percentage points over the past fifty years. The fed funds rate does not appear in that equation. On Wednesday the 10-year was trading around 4.95%, a multiyear high. Add the current spread of about 1.81 and you land almost exactly on the 6.76% the 30-year fixed was already carrying.
That rate was already there. It did not need the Fed’s permission.
There is even a case that Wednesday helps. As Joe Rennison observed in the Times, by raising the rates it controls, the Fed may actually lower many of the rates consumers pay — because demonstrating it will fight inflation, even against political pressure, can pull long-run inflation expectations down, and those expectations are what move the 10-year Treasury. Whether that materializes depends on credibility rather than arithmetic, so I would not build a plan on it.
What Wednesday genuinely changed is the timeline people carry in their heads. For three years, “wait for rates to come down” has had at least a plausible horizon behind it. The Fed’s own forecast now puts 2% inflation in 2029. That is no longer a decision about a few months. It is a bet on the back half of the decade.
At 6.76%, principal and interest on a $400,000 loan runs about $2,597 a month. At 6.25% it would be about $2,463 — roughly $134 less. That is real money. It is not worth several years of waiting in a market where the local median just rose 4.5% and supply is under two months.
My full September report — national, regional, county by county, with every figure footnoted — is available. Message me and I’ll send it.
Roxanne Qualls is Executive Sales Vice President at Sibcy Cline REALTORS® and a former Mayor of Cincinnati. She holds the GRI, GREEN, LRS, SRS and CLHMS designations. 513-404-7263 | rqualls@sibcycline.com | sibcycline.com/rqualls
Sources: National Association of REALTORS®, Existing-Home Sales, August 2026 (released September 10, 2026); REALTOR® Alliance of Greater Cincinnati, Market Statistics for August 2026 and individual county statistics, data updated September 14, 2026; MLS of Greater Cincinnati, Monthly Update, September 15, 2026; Northern Kentucky Association of REALTORS®/NKMLS, August 2026; Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey, September 10, 2026; Federal Housing Finance Agency House Price Index, 2026 Q2; ResiClub, September 4, 2026; Cotality, Zillow, Realtor.com and HousingWire data as reported in Keeping Current Matters, Monthly Market Report, September 2026; Federal Open Market Committee statement and Summary of Economic Projections, September 16, 2026, and The New York Times live coverage of the decision, September 16, 2026. Equal Housing Opportunity.
