Richmond Buyers Signed 13% Fewer Contracts in September. Prices Didn't Notice.

In September 2026, buyers across the four-jurisdiction Richmond metro signed 1,003 purchase contracts. A year earlier they signed 1,155. That's a 13.2% drop in pending sales, and for single-family homes alone it was 13.9%. Over the same month the median sale price rose 3.7% to $425,000. Single-family homes that sold in September had gone under contract in an average of 26 days, four days faster than last September.

Fewer buyers usually means softer prices. In Richmond it hasn't, at least not yet. The reason is on the supply side, and it tells you where a buyer can push this fall and where they can't.

The Pullback Is Real, But It Isn't One Month

One bad month can be noise: a holiday falling on a different day, a couple of big new-construction phases signing the year before. So we looked at the run of single-family pending sales month by month. July was down 13.0% from a year earlier. August was up 2.4%. September was down 13.9%. For the full third quarter, single-family contracts were down 8.7% (2,446 vs 2,679).

Two of the last three months down about 13% is a pattern, not a blip. It also erased most of the spring gains: through June, the year was running ahead of 2025. Year to date, single-family contracts are now up just 0.9%. (The MLS report prints the monthly 2026 counts and the percentage change; 2025 monthly counts for July and August aren't printed, so we show only the change.)

Why Prices Held Anyway: There's Still Nothing to Buy

Inventory rose, but not by much. At the end of September there were 2,595 homes for sale across the four jurisdictions, up 5.0% from a year earlier. At the current sales pace that's 2.3 months of supply. Nationally, the National Association of Realtors put supply at 4.9 months, its highest in over ten years, as reported in the same CVR MLS release. The common rule of thumb puts a balanced market at about six months. Richmond isn't close.

So the buyers who dropped out left behind a market that's still short of houses. The ones still shopping are competing over roughly the same thin supply as last year, which is why the price and speed numbers barely moved. A caution on the median: it moves with the mix of what sold. A month with more $600K closings lifts it without any single house getting more expensive. The average rose too (+4.9%), and the full-quarter single-family median was up 2.8% to $452,500, so the direction holds, but read the September median as "not falling," not as "accelerating."

Where Buyers Do Have Leverage: Condos and Townhomes

The attached-home market is a different story, and it has been all year. Condo and townhouse listings are up 9.7% year to date (3,310 vs 3,018), the average one now takes 42 days to go under contract versus 36 last year, and sellers are getting 98.2% of their original list price year to date, down from 98.7%. Third-quarter condo/town closings fell 11.1%. Supply sits at 3.1 months, still below balanced but well above single-family.

Half a point of list price sounds small. On a $375,000 townhouse it's about $1,900, and the extra week on market is where that negotiating room comes from.

What This Data Can't Tell You

• •No jurisdiction split. The public CVR MLS report combines Richmond City, Henrico, Chesterfield and Hanover. A slowdown concentrated in one county would be invisible here.
• •No price-band split. We can't tell whether the drop in contracts is coming from first-time buyers at the low end or move-up buyers at the high end.
• •Our own sold scrapes are stale. This site's automated Zillow refresh has failed for several weeks, so our newest home-level closing data ends September 4, 2026. Everything in this piece comes from the MLS's published aggregates, not our scrape.
• •October hasn't printed yet. If the rate move is the cause, October pending sales should show it again. If they bounce like August did, July and September were noise.

What It Means If You're Buying or Selling This Fall

Buying a single-family home: you'll face fewer rival offers than last fall, but the data doesn't show a discount. Homes are selling for an average 99.5% of their original list price, so plan on negotiating inspection items and closing-cost help rather than price. (The MLS figure doesn't count seller concessions, so some of the real give is hidden there.) At today's rates, the bigger lever is the loan: see what a monthly payment actually buys you.

Buying a condo or townhouse: this is where the market has softened. Listings that have sat well past the 42-day average are the ones where an offer below list is most likely to get a hearing.

Selling: the buyer pool shrank, but supply is still tight enough that well-priced homes sell in under a month. Price to recent comparable sales. Overpricing and waiting for a spring bump didn't pay off this year either: see the spring peak that wasn't. For the last home-level snapshot of the market, see the July 2026 Market Pulse.

Data: Central Virginia Regional MLS, September 2026 Monthly Indicators and Q3 2026 Quarterly Indicators, both current as of October 10, 2026. Covers residential activity in Chesterfield, Hanover, Henrico and Richmond City; percent changes as printed by the MLS (calculated from rounded figures). National supply figure and Federal Reserve/Freddie Mac rate context are as reported in the CVR MLS release commentary; the September 16 rate increase is also widely reported (for example, GKToday). Analysis and figure extraction notes: docs/editorial/newsroom/2026-W44/.