In Winters, a small Yolo County city of roughly 8,000 residents, the spring housing market produced a striking split: far fewer homes traded hands, but the ones that did sold for noticeably more. Newly released Redfin data for the three months ending May 2026 shows just nine homes sold in Winters, down from 23 in the same stretch of 2025 — a 60.9% drop in sales volume that stands out even by the standards of a market this small.

A thinner market, by the numbers

With only nine closings over three months, Winters is operating at a fraction of its recent pace. Two years ago, the same spring window saw 22 sales; five years ago, during the early-pandemic rush, it saw 20. Sales have also slipped month-over-month, down 10% from the 10 closings recorded in the three months ending April.

That low transaction count is important context for everything else in the data. In a market this thin, a handful of higher-end or lower-end sales can move the median sharply, so the price figures below should be read as directional rather than precise.

Active inventory tells a similar story of a quieter market. There were 28 homes listed for sale, down 20% from 35 a year ago and well below the 50 homes available in the spring of 2024. Inventory did rise 27.3% from the prior month, which is typical seasonal behavior as sellers list ahead of summer. At the current sales pace, Winters has about 3.1 months of supply — generally considered a balanced market, where neither buyers nor sellers hold a clear upper hand.

Prices up, but the picture is mixed

The median sale price came in at $671,598, up 10.0% from $610,500 a year ago and roughly 8.5% above the spring 2024 level of $618,850. On a per-square-foot basis, prices rose 7.9% year-over-year to $329, suggesting the gain isn’t simply a matter of larger homes selling this spring.

Month-over-month, however, the median slipped 3.6% from $696,500 in the three months ending April — a reminder that with only nine sales in the window, individual transactions can swing the headline number. Over the past five years, Winters’ median sale price has risen 17.5%, a more modest pace than many California markets posted during the same stretch.

Homes that did sell moved faster than a year ago. The median days on market fell to 35, down from 56 last spring and 80 two years ago — though still well above the 22-day pace seen in the frenzied 2021 market. The share of homes selling above list price dropped sharply, however, to 22.2% from 47.8% a year ago, and the sale-to-list ratio of 99.2% indicates the typical home closed just below its asking price. Together, those figures suggest sellers are still finding buyers reasonably quickly, but with less competitive bidding than a year ago.

Affordability and the rate backdrop

The 30-year fixed mortgage rate averaged 6.44% in May, down from 6.82% a year earlier but up slightly from 6.33% in April, according to Freddie Mac data published by the Federal Reserve. Even with rates lower than last spring, the price increase more than offsets the savings: a buyer purchasing a median-priced Winters home today with 20% down would face a monthly principal-and-interest payment of about $3,375, roughly $184 more per month than the same purchase would have required a year ago.

At a median household income of $122,951, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, that monthly payment consumes about 32.9% of gross monthly income — stretched, but not unaffordable by standard lending benchmarks. The price-to-income ratio of 5.5x puts Winters firmly in the upper range of what housing economists consider affordable, though that is broadly consistent with much of Northern California.

Nationally, home prices were roughly flat to slightly lower year-over-year, with the S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index essentially unchanged from May 2025. Against that backdrop, Winters’ 10% annual price gain stands out — though the sharp drop in transaction volume is a reminder that the local market is producing those numbers on a very small sample of sales.