The economic fallout from the war with Iran is raising the cost of buying a home in the United States, even as other housing-market signals this spring have buyers negotiating from a stronger position. Mortgage rates have moved higher since the conflict began, driven in part by surging energy prices that have increased worries about inflation and pushed up the yield on U.S. 10-year Treasury notes that lenders use in setting home-loan prices, according to the Associated Press.

Realtor.com reported that the average rate on a 30-year mortgage dropped to just under 6% in the last week of February, but then climbed this week to 6.46%, the report said. The AP also noted that the conflict has added uncertainty to the U.S. economic outlook at a time when the job market has been described as sputtering.

At the same time, housing-market conditions in many places have shifted toward buyers, the AP said. That includes more listings available for sale compared with a year earlier, as well as dynamics that can increase seller pressure when properties spend longer on the market.

“The war in Iran has seriously complicated the spring buying season,” Joel Berner, senior economist at Realtor.com, told AP. Berner said he expects many buyers to wait out rising rates and mounting economic uncertainty rather than commit to purchases before borrowing costs go further up.

For buyers who are able to purchase at current rates, the AP said the market may look more buyer-friendly than it did a year earlier, with leverage showing up in negotiation terms. In many cases, sellers that are watching their listings go unsold for weeks may become more willing to lower asking prices or offer concessions such as money toward closing costs, repairs, or other items needed to complete deals, real estate agents told AP.

In Dallas-Fort Worth, Matthew Crites, an agent with Coldwell Banker Realty, said lower listing prices and more homes on the market have forced many sellers to price more competitively or consider incentives to land buyers. “It’s been a really good buyer’s market to kind of start the year off with,” Crites said.

The AP illustrated the buyer-leverage dynamic with Fort Worth homeowner Anne King, who set her sights on a three-bedroom, two-bath ranch-style house listed at $275,000. King’s contract administrator negotiated $10,000 below the listing price and also asked the seller to contribute $5,000 toward closing costs; AP said the seller agreed and later added another $12,000 for repairs after an inspection found roof damage. “Fortunately for me, the seller was in a position they needed to sell,” King, 57, said.

Inventory shifts included a roughly 8% jump in active listings nationwide in February compared with a year earlier, according to Realtor.com data cited by AP, with the West, Midwest, and South outpacing the Northeast. AP reported that 43 of the 50 largest metro areas had more homes for sale in February than a year earlier, with listings rising between 10% and 38.5% in markets including Seattle, Indianapolis, Las Vegas, Houston and Denver.

As homes take longer to sell, prices in some major metros have started falling, the AP said, citing a median listing price down from a year earlier in just over half of the 50 largest metro areas. The report included examples such as nearly 9% decline in Austin and Memphis, and drops of more than 5% in Washington, D.C., San Diego and Los Angeles.

Redfin’s analysis, as reported by AP, also found a growing gap between sellers and prospective buyers nationally in February—about 46% more sellers than buyers—up from about 30% a year earlier and the largest gap in Redfin’s records dating to 2013. Redfin said Miami, Nashville and Austin were among the metros where sellers most outnumbered buyers.

At the same time, the AP said the broader U.S. housing market has faced a sales slump since 2022, when mortgage rates rose from pandemic-era lows. It described existing home sales as essentially flat last year at a 30-year low, with the pace remaining sluggish in early 2026 compared with a year earlier.

The AP also pointed to affordability pressure, even as price growth cools in some metros. The report said the median price of an existing home sold in February was $398,000, according to the National Association of Realtors, and noted that the figure is nearly five times median household income—an affordability gap that has kept many would-be buyers on the sidelines.

Agents told AP that sellers are increasingly facing pressure to adjust their expectations. Jo Chavez, a Redfin agent in Kansas City, told clients to expect their home may not sell right away and advised them to be “reasonable” with how they price it, according to AP. Chavez said some sellers have been pricing based on neighbors’ prior sale prices rather than reflecting that last year saw fewer sales.

The AP cited Kansas City as an example where the median listing price was not falling, rising 4.1% in February from a year earlier, while also describing a surge in available inventory, with homes on the market up nearly 20%. It also described Gail Sanders and her husband David, who put their four-bedroom, three-bath home in Olathe, Kansas on the market in late February and lowered their asking price from $535,000 to $525,000. AP said that even after open houses, the couple had not received offers as March drew to a close, and that plans for a move to a Kansas City suburb were on hold until a buyer appears.

The AP said the Sander’s decision reflected the risk of being left carrying two mortgages if they accept a contingency too early, with Gail Sanders telling AP she did not want to put themselves in a position of “two house mortgages” while waiting to sell.

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