Auction.com Finds Auction Buyers Growing More Bearish
(Stock Photo courtesy of Johnson via Unsplash)
Local community developers–the primary buyers at distressed property auctions–are the most bearish they’ve been in the last five years about the U.S. housing market, a new survey from Auction.com reports.
The firm surveyed more than 400 auction buyers in the first quarter for its 2026 Buyer Outlook Report. It found that 43% of buyers expect home prices in their local market to decrease this year, the highest share since the survey was launched in 2022. A record-high 31% of buyers said they expect rents to decline in 2026. And while 59% of buyers expect to increase their property purchases in 2026, this percentage is the lowest since 2023’s 54%.
Despite the bearish outlook for 2026, a record-low share of buyers (36%) described their local market as overvalued, indicating that an increasing number of markets are the most affordable they’ve been in five years. Many buyers still expect further price decreases in 2026, “indicating that the market has more to give back in terms of pricing,” the report said.
“Local community developers buying at auction expect a slow-motion housing correction to continue in 2026,” Auction.com CEO Jason Allnutt noted. “The silver lining is they are also reporting improved affordability in an increasing number of local markets.”
Home Price Expectations by Region
Buyers in the Central region of the country, which includes Texas, Ohio, Michigan and Illinois, among other states, were most likely to expect decreasing home prices in 2026 (50%) followed by the Southeast (49%) and the West (47%).
Only 37% of buyers in the Northeast region, which includes New York, New Jersey, Virginia and Pennsylvania, among other states, said they expected home prices to decrease in 2026, the lowest of any region.
Forty percent of all buyers said they expect a modest increase of up to 5% in home prices, and 17% of all buyers said they expect an increase exceeding 5% in 2026, down from 20% who had similar expectations in 2025.
Rent Expectations by Region
Buyers in the Southeast region of the country, which includes Georgia, Florida, Tennessee and Alabama, among other states, were the most likely to expect decreasing rents in 2026 (42%), followed by buyers in the West region (38%).
Buyers in the Central region (28%) and Northeast region (27%) were closely aligned in terms of the share expecting decreasing rents in 2026.
The majority of buyers surveyed (58%) expect a modest increase of 1% to 5% in rents in 2026 while only 11% expect rents to increase more than 5% for the year – a record low for the survey.
