US Home Value Outlook: September 2026
The typical US metro home value sits at $281,957 (median, August 2026 data), with 575 of 703 tracked metros showing year-over-year appreciation of +2.4% ▲ on average. That’s the rear-view — this post is about what comes next.
How last month’s outlook held up
For August 2026 we projected the typical metro home value to move -0.1% from July 2026. Across 703 metros it actually moved +0.2% — too low by 0.3 points.
The standing 12-month call. In our July 2026 outlook we projected +1.4% by July 2027. 1 month in, home values are +0.2% along — on pace.
What our models predict
Across 703 metros, our 6-month home-value forecasts are broadly higher at +0.1% ▲ on average — 382 metros forecast to appreciate ▲ and 321 expected to decline ▼. Twelve months out, the national picture is +1.4% ▲. But the story varies dramatically by metro. The national headline hides metros where buyers are quietly re-entering the market and others where price cuts are still working through inventory.
We publish the national home-value outlook here and grade it monthly. Per-metro home-value projections live in the app at six- and twelve-month horizons, where the signal is meaningful — one-month moves in home values are too small and too noisy to rank metros by, so we don’t.
What’s driving the forecasts
Mortgage rates remain the dominant signal. With 30-year rates holding above 6%, our model continues to favor metros where the rent-to-value ratio is wide — markets where rental income has caught up to flat or only mildly appreciating prices. Those are the cities where investor demand, combined with limited new for-sale supply, supports modest continued appreciation.
Migration matters too. Metros that have absorbed net in-migration for two consecutive years are turning up across our forecast leaderboard, particularly when paired with employment growth exceeding the national pace. Several Mountain West and Carolinas markets fit that profile.
On the cooling side, the story is mostly oversupply combined with affordability stretch. Sun Belt metros that pulled the most single-family permits during 2021–2022 are still working through new inventory, and our proprietary ML models are projecting modest price declines as that supply lands. A handful of these markets also face rising insurance costs, which our models pick up indirectly through disaster-frequency features.
Explore the full interactive forecast for your metro at rentlens.co →
Our home-value models run at 98.4% forecast accuracy across 703 metros. Forecasts retrain monthly as new actuals come in, and every edition is graded against the last.