Zillow Research publishes a large set of free housing files every month, and most of the numbers on this site come straight from them. The files are only useful if you know what each series measures and, just as important, what it does not. This guide covers the series we track for 195 metros, in the order most people should read them.
The definitions below are Zillow's. The methodology page lists them in short form, and every metro page shows the same fields with 24 months of history.
Zillow Home Value Index (ZHVI)
ZHVI is Zillow's estimate of the typical home value in an area. It is smoothed, seasonally adjusted, and built around the middle band of homes rather than the whole distribution, so a handful of very expensive or very cheap sales do not swing it. It covers single-family homes and condos.
What it is not: a sale price. ZHVI is a modeled value for the housing stock, including homes that did not sell. When a metro page shows a ZHVI of $735,000, that is an estimate of what a typical home is worth, not what typical homes traded for last month.
Use it for direction. The year-over-year change is the most readable version, and it is the one we show beside the level. Month-to-month moves are small and can be noisy, so a single month's change deserves less weight than the twelve-month trend.
Median list price
The median asking price of homes currently on the market. This is what sellers want, and it updates each month from active listings.
Read it with care for two reasons. Sellers set it before buyers respond, so it can run ahead of the market for months. And the mix of homes listed changes with the season, so a rising median list price can reflect larger homes coming to market rather than higher prices for the same homes.
Median sale price and sale-to-list ratio
Median sale price is what homes actually closed for. Where median list price is the ask, this is the answer.
The sale-to-list ratio compares sale prices to the prices those homes were listed at. A ratio above 1 means the typical home sold for more than its list price; below 1 means buyers negotiated down. In the August 2026 data, San Jose, CA and New York, NY sit above 1, while Cape Coral, FL sits at 0.954. Those three numbers say more about who holds the leverage in each market than any list price could.
Median days to pending
The typical number of days between a home going on the market and going under contract. On this site it appears as days on market, and it is the core of the slowest markets ranking.
Two limits to remember. It stops at the accepted offer, not the closing, so it says nothing about how long financing and inspections take. And it only counts homes that found a buyer, so a metro where many listings never go pending can still show a quick median.
There is no universal number that means hot or cold. The spread across metros in the latest data runs from about 6 days to 90, and what counts as slow in Lancaster, PA would be fast in Naples, FL. Compare a metro to its own history, and compare the same month across years, because days to pending has a strong seasonal pattern.
Share of listings with a price cut
The percentage of active listings that have had at least one price reduction since they were listed. This is the most direct measure of seller pressure in the set, and it is the basis of the most price cuts ranking.
The reasoning behind it is simple. A seller only cuts when the market has declined to pay the first ask. When the share of listings with a cut rises, more sellers are being told the same thing at once. Reductions happen before a lower price shows up in the sale data, which is why this series tends to be worth watching when you are trying to spot a turn early, though it is one signal among several rather than a forecast.
Seasonality matters here too, since listings that went up in spring accumulate cuts by late summer. Year-over-year comparison is the cleaner read. In the August 2026 data the share ranges from about 12 percent to 38 percent across the metros we track.
Inventory and new listings
Inventory is the count of homes for sale in a metro; new listings is how many came to market in the month. We show both with their year-over-year change.
The pairing matters. Rising inventory with flat new listings means homes are piling up because they are not selling. Rising inventory with rising new listings means more sellers are choosing to list, which is a different story. Falling inventory can mean strong demand or simply that discouraged sellers pulled their homes, so check it against days to pending before drawing a conclusion.
Rent index
Zillow's rent index estimates the typical asking rent in a metro. We show it with its year-over-year change and use it for the rent-versus-buy comparison. Like ZHVI, it is a modeled figure for the typical unit, not a record of signed leases.
Reading the series together
No single field tells you what a market is doing. A few combinations show up often enough to name.
Short days to pending, sale-to-list at or above 1, and a low price cut share: buyers are meeting sellers' prices. Sellers have the leverage.
Long days to pending, sale-to-list below 1, and a high price cut share: asking prices are above what the market will clear, and sellers are the ones adjusting. Austin, TX in the August 2026 data fits this pattern, with 53 days to pending, 30.2 percent of listings cut, and a ratio of 0.976.
Short days to pending with a high price cut share: homes priced to the market move quickly while overpriced ones get repriced fast. Boston, MA looks like this in the same data, at 13 days and 22.9 percent.
Rising ZHVI with a rising price cut share: values are up on a twelve-month view but current sellers are meeting resistance. That is often an early sign that the trend is slowing.
Where the data lives and when it refreshes
Zillow posts the underlying CSV files on its research data page, free and with several years of history. New files arrive early in each month, and this site regenerates within about a day of each release. Every metro page states which month its data runs through, and the all metros index is the fastest way to reach any of the 195 metro pages.
If you only remember one habit, make it this: pick a metro, look at the same month a year earlier, and see which series moved. The direction of days to pending and the price cut share will usually tell you more than the level of any price.