Memphis Real Estate Market Update — September

Memphis homes are sitting on the market longer than they were a year ago, and sellers are quietly losing leverage. If you're wholesaling in Shelby County, that shift is your opening — but only if you know exactly where the numbers stand.

Key Takeaways

• Memphis homes took a median of 68 days to sell as of August 2026, up from 64 days a year earlier.
• Active listings climbed to 5,451, the highest point in the past year.
• The median listing price slipped to $299,990, down from $332,995 in August 2025.
• The 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 6.95% as of September 17, 2026 — still pressuring buyer budgets.
• Memphis sellers now wait 8 days longer than the national median of 60 days.

What is the Memphis real estate market doing right now?

The Memphis real estate market is cooling — more homes are listed, they're taking longer to sell, and asking prices have come down from last year's peak. That's the short version.

Here's the longer one. As of August 2026, the median Memphis home sat on the market for 68 days, according to Realtor.com data tracked by FRED. A year earlier, that same figure was 64 days.

Meanwhile, active listings hit 5,451 — the highest reading in the past 13 months. And the median listing price landed at $299,990, down sharply from $332,995 in August 2025.

Translation: sellers have more competition, buyers have more choices, and the market is no longer rewarding "list it and wait."

Why this matters more than the headlines

National real estate news tends to talk about coastal markets. Memphis is different. It's a cash-flow market — lower price points, steady rental demand, and a lot of older housing stock.

When inventory climbs and days on market stretch, that's not a warning sign for wholesalers. It's a buying window.

How long are Memphis homes sitting on the market?

Memphis homes are taking a median of 68 days to sell as of August 2026 — eight days longer than the national median of 60 days.

That gap matters. It tells you Memphis sellers are feeling more pressure than the average American seller. And pressure is where wholesale margins live.

Let's look at how that number moved over the past year.

The trend is worth studying. Days on market climbed steadily from 64 in August 2025 to a peak of 81 days in January 2026. Then it dropped fast — down to 54 days by April 2026. Since then, it's been creeping back up, landing at 68 days in August.

What the seasonal swing tells you

That January spike isn't a mystery. Winter is always slower. But the fact that Memphis never got back below 60 days this summer is the real story.

A year ago, Memphis sellers were moving homes in about two months. Now they're waiting closer to ten weeks. Every extra week is another week a seller might say yes to a lower offer.

Where to focus your outreach

Homes that have been listed 60+ days are your sweet spot. The seller has already missed one price cut window. They're tired. They're paying carrying costs.

That's when a clean cash offer starts to sound reasonable.

How many homes are for sale in Memphis right now?

There were 5,451 active listings in Memphis as of August 2026 — the highest count in the past year.

Inventory has been climbing since February 2026, when it bottomed out at 4,338 listings. In six months, the market added more than 1,100 homes for sale.

Look at the shape of that curve. Listings fell through the winter — down to 4,338 in February — then rose every single month through August. That's a steady, consistent build.

Why rising inventory helps wholesalers

More listings means more competition for sellers. When a seller is competing against 5,451 other homes, they can't afford to be stubborn.

It also means more expired listings. More price reductions. More "motivated seller" language in the MLS.

All of that is raw material for your acquisition pipeline.

The national context

The national median days on market sat at 60 days in August 2026, per FRED. Memphis is running 8 days slower.

That's not a crisis. It's an opportunity. Markets that lag the national average tend to have more negotiable sellers — and that's exactly where wholesale spreads widen.

What's happening to Memphis home prices?

The median listing price in Memphis fell to $299,990 as of August 2026, down from $332,995 in August 2025.

That's a drop of roughly $33,000 in a year. Prices slid steadily from August 2025 through January 2026, then flattened out in the $299K–$304K range for most of 2026.

The chart shows the full picture. Prices peaked at $332,995 in August 2025, dropped to $299,900 by January 2026, and have hovered near $300K ever since. The market found a floor — but it's a lower floor than last year.

What this means for your offers

A $300K median list price means your typical Memphis deal is going to be in the $150K–$250K range after you account for condition and negotiation. That's a healthy zone for wholesaling.

Lower price points mean lower holding costs. Lower holding costs mean more end buyers can close quickly. And more end buyers means faster assignments.

Don't confuse list price with sale price

List price is what sellers are asking. Sale price is what buyers are paying. In a cooling market, the gap between those two numbers widens.

That gap is your negotiation room. Track it closely in your submarkets.

Memphis vs. the national market: how do they compare?

Memphis is running slower and cheaper than the national market — and that combination is exactly what wholesalers want.

Here's the side-by-side:

Metric	Memphis	National	Difference
Median days on market (Aug 2026)	68 days	60 days	+8 days
Median listing price (Aug 2026)	$299,990	—	—
Median sales price (Q2 2026)	—	$410,700	—
30-year fixed mortgage rate (Sep 17, 2026)	6.95%	6.95%	—

A few things jump out.

First, Memphis homes sit 8 days longer than the national median. That's a meaningful gap — it means local sellers are more negotiable than the average American seller.

Second, the national median sales price was $410,700 as of April 2026. Memphis list prices are running about $110K below that. Lower entry points mean lower risk per deal.

Third, mortgage rates are the same everywhere. The 30-year fixed hit 6.95% as of September 17, 2026. That's up from 6.49% in late June — a nearly half-point jump in under three months.

Why the rate climb matters

Higher rates squeeze buyer purchasing power. Every quarter-point increase knocks some buyers out of the market entirely.

Fewer retail buyers means more homes sitting. More homes sitting means more sellers willing to talk to an investor.

You don't need rates to crash. You need rates to stay high enough that retail demand stays soft. That's the current setup.

What should wholesalers do in this Memphis market?

Focus on listings that have been sitting 60+ days, lead with speed and certainty, and price your offers off recent sold comps — not list prices.

Here's a step-by-step playbook for the current market:

1. Pull expired and stale listings weekly. Anything over 60 days on market in Shelby County is fair game. That's the median right now, so half the market qualifies.
2. Lead with certainty, not price. Sellers in a slow market care about closing. "I can close in 14 days, cash, no repairs" beats "I'll pay $5K more" almost every time.
3. Comp off solds, not lists. With list prices at $299,990 and a cooling trend, your ARV should come from closed sales in the last 90 days — not asking prices.
4. Track your submarkets separately. Memphis is not one market. Midtown, Cordova, Bartlett, and South Memphis all behave differently. Pull days-on-market data by ZIP.
5. Build a cash buyer list before you need it. More inventory means more deals — but only if you can move them fast.

The tool side of the equation

You don't need a dozen subscriptions to run this playbook. You need solid data, a way to reach sellers, and a CRM to keep it all straight.

There are 65 tools across 9 categories in the Wholesale REI directory — everything from skip tracing to dialers to deal analysis. Pick the two or three that match your bottleneck and ignore the rest.

If your bottleneck is data, look at tools like PropStream or ATTOM Data. If it's outreach, dialers like CallTools or Launch Control do the heavy lifting. If it's follow-up, a CRM like GoHighLevel keeps deals from slipping.

A quick note on lead volume

With 5,451 active listings and a median of 68 days on market, there are more stale sellers in Memphis right now than at any point in the past year. That's your lead pool.

The wholesalers who win this fall will be the ones who work that pool consistently — not the ones waiting for a magic moment.

The Bottom Line

Memphis is a slower, softer market than it was a year ago — 68 days on market, 5,451 active listings, and a median list price of $299,990. For wholesalers, that's not bad news. It's a window where motivated sellers are easier to find and easier to negotiate with. Your next step: pull a list of Shelby County homes sitting 60+ days and start making calls. If you want to sharpen your pitch first, practice a few rounds against a realistic AI seller with our free AI Cold Call Trainer — no signup needed to start.