The 20% Headline Is Gone: What Lansing's August Numbers Actually Show

For most of 2026, the story was easy to tell: Lansing prices up 15-20% year over year, homes gone in a week, sellers routinely getting full asking price. It made for a great headline. It also was never going to last forever, and August is the month the math finally caught up.

Median sold price: $256,500, up just 0.6% year over year. Not 20%. Not even 10%. Six-tenths of one percent — basically flat.

That's not a crash, and it's not cause for alarm. It's a market settling back down to something closer to normal after an unsustainable sprint. Here's what the rest of the data shows.

August 2026 By the Numbers

Residential, Greater Lansing Association-wide (GLAR MLS)

• Median sold price: $256,500 (+0.6% YoY)
• Average sold price: $288,857 (+4.6% YoY)
• Average days on market: 24.1 days (down from 26.8 — homes are moving faster than last August, even as prices cool)
• Active listings: 1,007 (+9.3% YoY)
• Closed sales: 480 (+7.4% YoY — the third straight month of positive year-over-year closings)
• Months of supply: 2.44 (up from 2.26 a year ago; a balanced market is 5–6)

Market Trends

Prices are cooling off

Honestly, this is what I expected once spring's 20% number started making the rounds — that pace was never going to hold. August proves it. If you were bracing for another double-digit jump, you can relax a little. Price growth has essentially paused.

But sales haven't slowed down at all

Closed sales are up year over year for the third month in a row, and homes are still selling faster than they did last year. This isn't a market losing steam. Prices and sales activity have just gone their separate ways — prices leveled off while transactions kept climbing.

Inventory is slowly building back up

Active listings are up 9.3% year over year, and months of supply crept up from 2.26 to 2.44. We're still firmly in seller territory (a balanced market runs 5-6 months of supply), but the gap is narrowing a little more each month.

What This Means for You

Sellers

The full-ask-in-a-week days aren't over, but the automatic double-digit appreciation is. If you price to today's market instead of last spring's trendline, you're the one selling in 24 days instead of 45.

Buyers

A flat-price month feels completely different at the negotiating table than a 20%-appreciation month did. If you've been operating like you're chasing a moving target, it might be time to rethink your offer strategy.

Investors

Run your numbers off the trailing 90 days, not off spring's figures. This is exactly the kind of slowdown I've been telling people to watch for, and it's good to see the data back that up instead of the market just riding the hype indefinitely.

Data source: Greater Lansing Association of REALTORS® MLS, August 2026 (residential, association-wide). Posted by Chris Silker, REALTOR®, KW Advantage. Past performance only — not a forecast or guarantee of future results.