Cedar City housing market
Third Quarter 2026

Put July, August, and September together and Cedar City had a busy summer. A hundred and ninety-four single-family homes closed in the third quarter, about ten percent more than the same stretch last year and the most of any quarter so far in 2026. Dollar volume ran about thirteen percent ahead. Sellers held ninety-nine percent of their list price, the same as last summer. By the measures that count the business actually done, this was a good quarter.

Two lines push back. The quarter's median slipped about three percent below last summer's, which makes this the first quarter of 2026 with a median under the year before. And homes took longer to get there: about ten weeks to reach contract, against about nine a year ago, with the full trip from listing to closing day running nearly two weeks longer. The short version is a summer that did more business, a little more slowly, at about the same prices. The quarter charts above show how it fits into the rest of the year, and the next section explains why that median dip is smaller than it looks.

This is the part of the summer that looks like a contradiction. August and September each posted a monthly median about eleven percent above the same month last year. Only July came in lower. Yet the quarter as a whole finished about three percent below last summer. A quarterly median is not the average of three monthly ones. It is the middle sale out of all of them pooled together, so a month with a lot of closings in the lower and middle price bands carries extra weight. This July was that kind of month. Last summer ran the other way around: last July was the high-priced month of that quarter, and it had the fewest closings of the three.

The average sale price is the tiebreaker, and it rose about two percent. When the average climbs while the median slips, that points to a change in which homes sold more than a change in what homes are worth. The rest of the comparison reads the same way. New listings were down a few percent, new contracts written in the quarter were down about five percent, and listings active during the quarter were nearly unchanged. The average unsold listing had been on the market about thirty percent less time than a year ago. Nothing in that list describes a market losing ground. It describes one that worked through more sales with a little less fresh supply coming in.

Last summer, Cedar City homes sold faster than they had in the spring. This summer they did not, and that worked in buyers' favor. The typical home that sold took about ten weeks to find a buyer, so a house you toured on a Saturday was usually still available the next one. Listings active during the quarter ran close to last year's count, and fewer contracts were written than last summer, which kept the competition for any single house in check.

Price is where buyers did not get a break. Sellers still collected ninety-nine percent of list, the same as last summer, so the extra time showed up as calmer decisions rather than discounts. If you are shopping this fall, use that time to compare parts of town instead of waiting on price cuts. A newer home from one of the builders on my new construction in Cedar City list and an oversized lot off Lund Highway in Chelsey are both on the table, and they price on very different terms.

The quarter charts above tell the story of 2026 better than any single month can. In the first quarter, Cedar City closed slightly fewer homes than the year before at a median about seven percent higher. In the second quarter, closings were about even with last year and the median ran about five percent higher. In the third, closings jumped about ten percent and the median gave back about three. The year started with fewer sales at higher prices and has moved, one quarter at a time, toward more sales at a flatter price.

Some of that is the calendar. The summer quarter in Cedar City carries the end of the relocation season and SUU move-in at the close of August, and this year a lot of that summer business landed in the middle of the price range, as July's numbers showed. Some of it is supply. Listings active during the first quarter ran well above last year, and that gap has narrowed each quarter since. I would not call a three percent dip in a quarter where the average rose a turn. But the price gains of the first half did not carry into the summer, and that is worth saying plainly.

Two things carry into the fall. New contracts written over the summer came in about five percent below last year, so the closing pace that made this quarter busy is unlikely to repeat at the same strength through the end of the year. And September, on its own, was quicker than the summer around it, with sold homes reaching contract in about eight weeks. If that speed holds, the slower summer pace was a seasonal bulge and not a new normal.

The bigger question for the fourth quarter is price. The first two quarters of 2026 ran ahead of last year and the third slipped just under. Last year's fourth quarter is the final comparison of the year, and where this one lands against it will say whether the summer dip was the mix of homes that sold or the start of a flatter stretch. Either way, a citywide quarter will not tell you what your house is worth. A home valuation will, built from the sales closest to your address.

A quarterly report smooths out the noise of single months, which is why I write one. It still describes all of Cedar City at once, and this quarter shows why that has limits: the median dipped while the average rose, because the mix of homes that sold shifted. Your house is not an average of anything. It has its own square footage, condition, lot, and street, and its price comes from the handful of recent sales that actually look like it. My Cedar City home value page explains how I find those sales, and a full valuation turns them into a price range you can plan around.

Once you have a range, run the money side. The seller net sheet shows what lands in your account once the payoff and closing costs come out, and the sell now or wait calculator puts a spring listing beside a fall one with your own numbers in it. The first price you list at does more work than any price change after it, so it is worth getting right before the home goes live.

Cedar City looks like one market on the cards above, but it is really a set of small ones that happen to share a city limit. Rural acreage in Cross Hollow Hills above Westview, horse-permissive lots with community stables in Equestrian Pointe, and established east-side homes near the trail in Fiddlers Canyon each have their own price band and their own pace. A citywide quarter blends them all, and the blend matches very few actual houses.

That matters most in a quarter like this one, where the mix of what sold moved the headline median. If a lot of the summer closings came from one price band, the pocket you own in may have had a very different three months than the citywide figure suggests. My Cedar City neighborhoods guide breaks down each area, how it tends to price, and what sets it apart. It is the right place to start before you lean on any number on this page.

Very few Cedar City sellers are only selling. There is a next home on the other side of the closing, and this summer's pace, about ten weeks to an offer and close to four months from listing to closing, gives you time to line the two up if you start early. If you need more room, my moving up in Cedar City guide covers the order of operations, and the buy before you sell calculator shows what carrying both homes for a stretch would actually look like.

If the next home is smaller and simpler, the right-sizing in Cedar City page walks through it without leaving equity on the table. Whichever way you are headed, I can run the listing and the home search together so the move-out date and the move-in date actually meet.