September 2026 Greenwich Market Report

Sales Up and Down as Greenwich Inventory Rebounds in Third Quarter

Sales were flat in September 2026, which is quite an accomplishment, give that every year before sales have dropped from August to September. One of the reasons this happened is that sales in August were so terrible. After rising steeply from February to July, our sales hit a wall in August. Bring a few sales back to August and things would look more normal, but August was a bad month and September was a good month.

For the month of September 2026, our sales were up 7 sales over September 2025 jumping from 30 sales last year to 37 sales this year, a 23% increase. However, for the third quarter sales were down from 161 sales in the third quarter of last year to 149 sales this year, a drop of 7.5%. Both of those things can be explained with one word “inventory”.

For most of this year, our inventory has been about 20% below our inventory levels in 2025. That changed very suddenly in the week after this Labor Day. We went from 75 single family home listings at the end of August to 107 listings by the end of Labor Day week.

All in all, we had 78 new listings come on in September 2026 compared to 69 listings last September. Our inventory as of the end of September stands at 119 listings, which isn’t good, but at least it’s a tiny bit better than the end of last September when we had 116 listings. This jump meant that our inventory was not 20% down like just about every other week this year.

Of those 78 September 2026 listings, 14 of them qualify as what I call a “blue moon” a listing that comes on during the month and goes to contract before the end of the month. These listings don’t get counted in the month ending inventory.

In addition, we had one private sale in September, which the GMLS categorizes as “For Reporting Purposes Only”. RPO’s all show up as 0 days on the GMLS and 0 days on market. So far in 2026, we have had 35 RPO sales. As you might expect, the higher priced private sales are the ones that get reported as RPO’s.

Back in September 2025, we actually had fewer new listings than this September with only 69 new listings. Since those 69 listings came on the market in September 2025, 53 of them have sold, and an additional 7 expired unsold. Then there were the 8 listings that were cancelled.

Cancellations happen for many reasons. One broker I know of will cancel a listing rather than let it expire on their watch. Then again, some owners decide they don’t want to sell or can’t sell for a variety of reasons; couples not divorcing, job offers rescinded, a parent gets sick, or their boss finally gives them the big promotion that they deserve. What looked like a good reason to sell, becomes a good reason to buy.

This September, we have 60 contracts, down a little from the 63 contracts that we had last September. The fall in contracts is partially responsible for the rise in sales in September. We were closing faster, and our new contracts were lower due to lower inventory. If we do continue to get more inventory, we will see more sales in the months going forward just as we did this September (but see below).

The demand these days is high as shown by only 2.8 months of supply and a median days on market of 17 days. This major supply and demand imbalance continues to push up prices. Our median sales price in September was $3.6 million, compared to $3.15 million at the end of 2025. This September, 70.3% of our 37 sales went for full list or over list. On the flip side, this means that only 29.7% of our listings sold for under their original list price.

For the quarter, sales were down as mentioned before, but they were also down for two of the first three quarters this year. In the first quarter of 2026, sales were up from 74 sales to 87 sales this year. The second quarter was down from 158 sales in 2025 to 149 sales. The result is that year-to-date we’ve had 380 sales compared to 393 sales for the first three quarters of 2025. Inventory matters.

It would be great if this is the last year of lower inventory and lower sales, but then I said that for 2025 also. The economic outlook is full of storm clouds with higher interest rates, trade wars and real wars, albeit regional ones. All of these weigh on the market. Having said that as long as the stock market stays up, sales will continue to be good in Greenwich, with the number of our financial executives who are looking at very good bonuses and stock appreciation.

They also may be finally encouraging some people to list their houses. Our inventory from $1.5 – 4 million is actually up as of the end of September, which is very good news, since this is the heart of market. The heart of market is also where we have seen big sales drops. From $1 million to $4 million we are down 29 sales or 14% compared to 2025.

The good thing is that it won’t continue, as inventory is up, and for the last 3 years, when inventory rises, sales do too. When you look at the weekly contract numbers (the best indicator of market activity), our contracts turned up two weeks after our inventory took off after Labor Day. With that median of 17 days on market, it doesn’t take long for inventory to be contracts.

The other big change is from $6.5 – 10 million where sales took off this year, jumping from 23 sales at the end of three quarters last year to 43 sales this year or a jump of 87%. What is more remarkable is that sales are just above and below that hot price range, i.e. from $5- 6.5 million and over $10 million are down.

People are buying very nice, big houses, they are just not buying really nice houses that are as big as last year. This price range will continue to do well as we have 10 contracts waiting to close between $6.5 and 10 million.

Over $10 million, we “only” have 23 year-to-date sales, down 3 from last year, and 5 contracts, down 8 from last year. Some people have been saying the over $10 million market is hurting, but it’s actually excelling.

Last year’s 38 sales over $10 million doubled our previous record for sales set in 2007. That year we had 19 sales over $10 million. We are already guaranteed to have the second-best year for sales over $10 million with our 23 sales YTD. Annualizing our 23 sales YTD gets us to 31 sales, which is still a stellar year, just not as stellar as last year’s all-time record.

Mayor Mamdani has not helped ultra-high-end sales as much as did candidate Mamdani. He tried with his pied-à-terre tax, but that got struck down. Curiously, that tax kicked in at $5 million for second homes. Maybe, the mayor is helping Greenwich sales just not quite at the ultra- high-end as they were last year.

The fourth quarter will also bring us the mid-term election for Congress. Our presidential election years often have a drop-off in sales in October and then sales pick up in November as the uncertainty of the election is resolved. Mid-terms elections don’t normally generate the same level of uncertainty, but given what is at stake this year they just might.

Should I buy now?

The question on the buy side is simple. Even if we get higher interest rates, and the stock market falls and Democrats control both houses, leading to even more government chaos; we still are not going to see inventory return to anything like normal levels.

Also, higher interest rates don’t hurt Greenwich much as most of our deals are all cash. Mortgage interest deductions are limited to only the first $750,000 of a mortgage. You can see the minimal effect this deductible has in Greenwich, when you look at the split between pending and contingent contracts.

As of the end of September, we had 60 contracts and only of 8 of those are contingent. Of the 52 pending contracts, 7 of those had had a contingency before they went pending. That means 15 of the 60 contracts had a contingency in them at some point and had a mortgage contingency. Well, no, not really.

With how fast things are moving and with multiple offerors, buyers are signing contracts with all sorts of non-mortgage contingencies, just to tie up the house. Contract contingencies can be things like radon and water test results, zoning and land use approval contingencies and even contingencies that the seller has to find a house. Lots of our contingencies are not mortgage contingencies, mortgage rate increases shouldn’t have a big impact on most of our market.

In Greenwich, higher interest rates could even help buyers as their new bonds throw off more income. Then again, they may be taking a bath on their old bonds, but for the moment those are paper losses.

Should I sell now?

For sellers the determination has more factors. Will economic distress mean that houses will not appreciate as fast as bonds and thus now is the time to sell. But inventory doesn’t come close to meeting our demand, likely continuing to push up prices. There are at least 3 other factors that go into the hold or sell determination, but that’s for another article.

Mark Pruner is one of the co-founders of the Greenwich Streets Team along with Russ Pruner, Dena Zarra, Tim Agro, and Felipe Dutra. Their website, GreenwichStreets.com is home to the Greenwich Guide, Mark’s weekly market reports and extensive blog posts by Dena, Ruas and Mark. It also has a very popular house search feature.