Published October 4, 2026 in Market Update

Luxury Buy Box inventory is down even as more homes are selling

By Living Vogue Real Estate

Real estate, Luxury Buy Box

You may have heard that listings are up across the country. That is true nationally. It is not the story here.

Realtor.com reported that active listings nationwide grew 5.5% year over year, topping 1.16 million homes for sale. The Real Estate Data Aggregator counted something different for the Luxury Buy Box. Inventory here fell 11.4% over the same stretch. Fewer homes. More buyers still in the market.

That gap matters. When supply shrinks and demand holds, sellers carry more of the leverage. Buyers have less room to wait.

Sales rose. Supply fell. Both at once.

The Real Estate Data Aggregator counted 1,376 homes sold across the Luxury Buy Box in the three months ending July 31, 2026. That is up 2.8% from the same three months in 2025. Pending sales reached 1,480, up 0.3% year over year. Demand did not retreat.

New listings came in at 1,857, up just 0.7%, according to the Real Estate Data Aggregator. Sellers are listing. But the active pool keeps shrinking because homes are selling before they pile up.

The national backdrop is pulling in a different direction

Realtor.com reported that mortgage rates topped 7% for the first time since January 2025. Nationally, price cuts hit 20.8% of listings in September, the highest share since October 2022, also per Realtor.com. Those are real headwinds for buyers across the country.

Here, the picture is calmer. Inventory is tighter. Sales are up. That is a different set of conditions from what the national numbers describe.

Not every ZIP reads the same

The ten ZIP codes inside the Luxury Buy Box each tell their own version of this story. Some tightened sharply. Some loosened a little.

ZIP 77062 was the only one where inventory grew, up 13.1% per the Real Estate Data Aggregator. ZIP 77059 and 77058 each saw inventory fall more than 23%. Those are very different markets sitting inside the same Buy Box.

Speed tells the same story

In ZIP 77059, the Real Estate Data Aggregator found that 46.7% of homes went under contract within two weeks of listing, up 24.5 points from a year before. In ZIP 77573, 34.8% did the same, up 8 points. Homes are moving faster in most of these ZIPs, not slower.

Not every home sold fast. ZIP 77565 had a median of 82 days on market, per the Real Estate Data Aggregator. ZIP 77518 sat at 55 days, and days there grew 10 from a year before. Some pockets are slower. Pricing and condition still decide it.

Prices moved in both directions

The Real Estate Data Aggregator showed ZIP 77059 with the highest median sale price at $443,500, up 7.5% year over year. ZIP 77546 came in at $435,790, though that was down 16.9% from a year before. ZIP 77058 had the lowest median at $194,000, down 17.4%.

Price direction varied by ZIP. Some went up. Some came down. The Buy Box as a whole does not have one price story. Your street has its own.

These numbers cover the three months ending July 31, 2026. If you are making a decision today, your street matters more than the ZIP average.