New Zillow Forecast: 10 Predictions for the 2026 Housing Market

Zillow has released their 2026 housing market predictions. Here's what I think they got wrong and, fair enough, what they got right too. Mortgage rates, home prices, affordability. We all wanna know what's gonna happen this year in the real estate market. I've made my predictions. Zillow has published theirs. Let's see how they stack up. Hey, everyone. I'm Dave Meyer. I am a trained data analyst, and I've been analyzing the housing market in particular for fifteen years now alongside being a real estate investor as well. I released my own personal predictions for 2026 mortgage rates and home prices back in December. And, of course, when the biggest names in the real estate industry release their own forecasts, I like to see if my forecast is aligned, if we agree or disagree on some of the big points. So that's what we're gonna do today. I'll go down the list of Zillow's ten twenty twenty six housing market predictions and tell you which I think will come true and which I'm not so sure about. Zillow's key takeaways from their predictions are that home prices will rise about 1% nationally and that sales volume will increase 4%. They see the housing market getting healthier and better conditions for buyers. And I broadly agree with that sentiment, but not every single one of these predictions, so let's get into them one by one. Alright. Prediction number one from Zillow says home values will rise modestly. They say, quote, US home values are forecasted to grow 1.2% in 2026 after national values were roughly flat in 2025. Next year's forecast reflects expectations of gradually improving affordability and steady buyer demand. Mortgage costs should ease a bit in 2026, helping more buyers stay in the market and support modest price growth in many parts of the country. So Zillow is saying they are expecting very modest growth, 1.2%. That is a modest nominal home price. They are predicting, I should mention, real home prices. So inflation home prices would fall in this scenario about 2%. Now if you didn't watch the episode where I made my own predictions about home prices, my prediction was that home prices will come in a range of negative four to 2%. So I think roughly flat is about where we're going to be. And if you had to ask me today, am I leaning towards plus 1% like Zillow or minus 1%? I would say minus 1%. But for all intents and purposes, I think Zillow and I are saying pretty similar things here. Right? Because it's pretty hard a year out, especially given everything that's going on in the economy to say, yeah, it's gonna be just north of zero or just south of zero. But I think the important takeaway here is that both Zillow and I, and I should mention other major forecasters who do these types of projections, are all basically saying they don't expect home prices to move that much …