{"id":24935,"date":"2026-04-30T10:40:01","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:40:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thefundspros.com\/?p=24935"},"modified":"2026-04-30T10:40:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T10:40:02","slug":"bankrate-buyer-opportunity-index-bankrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thefundspros.com\/?p=24935","title":{"rendered":"Bankrate Buyer Opportunity Index | Bankrate"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Prospective homebuyers in Texas are demanding thousands of dollars in price cuts as once-hot real estate markets cool off. It\u2019s the same in Southwest Florida, where owners are offering to repaint their homes in hopes of enticing buyers. <\/p>\n

Even a little prayer helps, said Emily Alspaugh of Grandville, Michigan, who buried a statue of St. Joseph in her backyard as she waited for buyers to notice her three-bedroom duplex.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe picked the wrong time to list our house,\u201d said Alspaugh, who had been waiting for three weeks (and counting) for an offer. While her corner of suburban Michigan is still a relatively strong market, it now takes three times as long to sell a home there as it did in 2022. \u201cIt\u2019s not going as well as I had hoped.\u201d<\/p>\n

An exclusive Bankrate analysis of real estate data shows the U.S. housing market has shifted dramatically \u2013 and unevenly \u2013 since the pandemic, presenting a rare opportunity for prospective buyers in some unexpected places. Homes that were snapped up in a weekend four years ago can now sit unsold for months in some communities. In others, the market doesn\u2019t appear to have changed much, if at all. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a stark divide in housing market conditions across the U.S.,\u201d said Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS, a large listing service in the mid-Atlantic region.<\/p>\n

Bankrate\u2019s Buyer Opportunity Index examines housing data in 100 U.S. metro areas to show where buying power has shifted the most over the past few years. It reveals buyers have gained the most negotiating power since the pandemic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, Raleigh, North Carolina, and Austin, Texas. They\u2019ve gained the least in Chicago, Milwaukee and New York.<\/p>\n

The shifts are a reflection of how local housing markets responded to the Covid era, which roiled both supply and demand as hundreds of thousands of Americans migrated out of urban areas and interest rate cuts sparked a housing boom. Homebuilding picked up considerably in many corners of the country in response, especially in the suburbs and along the Sun Belt as communities made room for thousands of new residents.<\/p>\n

Now, prices have caught up with demand and home sellers in former Covid boomtowns are competing with new homes that recently hit the market.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a necessary correction,\u201d said Mike Hollow, broker-owner at Blue Line Realty SWFL in Fort Myers, Florida, and president-elect of the local Realtor association. \u201cWe don\u2019t like seeing double-digit (price) appreciation. That\u2019s a recipe for disaster.\u201d<\/p>\n

The biggest swings to a buyer\u2019s market<\/h2>\n

Bankrate\u2019s Buyer Opportunity Index scored the 100 largest U.S. metro areas across four key metrics: housing supply, discounted listings (the percentage of for-sale homes in an area that have cut their asking price), the median time homes sit unsold, and the median sale-to-list ratio. It then ranked each according to their relative market strength (100 is the strongest buyer\u2019s market, 1 is the weakest) and compared how those rankings shifted from 2022 to 2026.<\/p>\n

How much are these market shifts felt at the local level? Take a look at Colorado Springs. The picturesque city at the foot of the Rocky Mountains saw housing supply quadruple from February 2022 to February 2026. The influx of new homes sapped home owners\u2019 negotiating power as a result. <\/p>\n

Homes now sit unsold for an average of 54 days in Colorado Springs, nearly 11 times as long as they did four years ago.\u00a0And 25% of the area\u2019s home listings have cut their asking price at least once, up from 8% four years ago.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s even worse in some cases, said Patrick Muldoon, a Colorado Springs real estate agent who recently received an offer on a home that previously sat for 976 days. Muldoon recently has been telling sellers to expect their home to stay on the market for 90 days \u2013 nearly twice the amount of time it usually takes to sell a home in his area. He\u2019s also been cautioning buyers that if they plan to stay in their home for less than three years, they\u2019ll be better off renting.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have a lot of uncertainty right now,\u201d Muldoon said. \u201cYou have higher interest rates that have not come down, despite what everyone said. Unemployment ticked up. On top of that, everything costs a lot. There\u2019s really not any reprieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here are the five metros that experienced the biggest shifts toward a buyer\u2019s market over the past four years:<\/p>\n