New Orleans-area real estate agent Donna Chandler is busier this summer than she’s been in years.
She and her colleagues are fielding more calls from potential buyers and sellers, and she’s selling more houses. In the past month, she’s closed three deals, including two homes in Metairie that sold for more than $600,000 each.
“There is definitely more activity,” said Chandler, an associate broker with ReMax Affiliates. “It feels like things are starting to normalize after the post-COVID slump.”
Data appears to back what Chandler is experiencing. After three anemic years caused by interest rate increases and soaring insurance premiums, housing markets across southeast Louisiana are showing faint signs of recovering.
During the first six months of the year, the number of sales across the 10-parish New Orleans region increased nearly 7% over the same period a year ago, according to the New Orleans Metropolitan Association of Realtors.
In the Baton Rouge area, they were up almost 4%, figures provided by the Greater Baton Rouge Association of Realtors show. And in the Lafayette area, they were up 5% for their second straight year and are at their highest total since 2022, according to Bill Bacque, with Market Scope Consulting.
Market watchers attributed the uptick to a couple of factors. A handful of new insurers have started writing homeowners policies in the state, pushing premiums slightly lower. Also, buyers are getting used to interest rates that have been holding steady at around 6.5% for more than a year after spiking in 2023 and 2024.
“This is one of the busiest times I’ve had in a long time,” said Ron Barden, owner of Mandeville-based Barden Real Estate, as he drove between video shoots for four listings on Tuesday.
Still, while sale activity is up, a couple of other key measures suggest the south Louisiana housing market has not fully recovered from its post-pandemic funk. The amount of time properties spend listed for sale in the two largest metros is continuing to increase — it’s up to 71 days in the Greater New Orleans area and to more than 80 days in the Baton Rouge metro — though the rate of increase has slowed and in Lafayette Parish, it’s dropped from 80 days to 75.
More significantly, median home sale prices in most parts of the state, though generally higher, are barely keeping up with inflation, which averaged 3.5% in the first six months of 2026.
Across metro New Orleans, the median sale price rose by less than 2% to $285,000 in the first half of the year. In the Baton Rouge area, it was up 3.8% to $275,000. In the Lafayette area, it inched up 1.5% to $257,000.
“Overall, I wouldn’t call the improvements substantial,” said Scott Brannon, an associate broker with Compass Real Estate in New Orleans. “But it’s definitely better than it was.”
‘Downward pressure’?
Within the three metro areas, there were differences among the parishes — and some inconsistencies.
In the New Orleans metro area, St. Tammany Parish had a 14% increase in sales during the first half of the year, though the median home sale price was flat at $300,000. Jefferson Parish sales activity was essentially unchanged, with two fewer sales in the first half of 2026 than the year before, though the median sale price was up nearly 4% to $275,000.
Orleans Parish, meanwhile, saw a 5% jump in the number of closed sales and a 2% increase in the median home sale price to $285,000.
East Baton Rouge Parish sales activity was virtually unchanged over the same period a year ago, while the median sale price was up nearly 2.5% to $280,500. Both Livingston and Ascension parishes saw a 6% jump in closed sales and slight increases in the median sales price.
New construction in the Acadiana region continues to drag down prices of existing homes due to the incentives from builders that make the increased price tag easier to swallow for buyers, according to Jim Keaty, owner of Keaty Real Estate in Lafayette.
“Never in history have we seen new construction at a higher price and more affordable than existing homes,” Keaty said. “It’s putting downward pressure on the price (of existing homes). New construction, which is always higher, is more affordable on a monthly basis. That’s the interesting story.”
Highs and lows
Another interesting trend across south Louisiana, according to residential brokers, is the disparity between the luxury home market, where all-cash buyers are still engaging in bidding wars in some neighborhoods, and the market for more affordable and starter homes.
New Orleans broker Charlotte Dorion, with Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices Preferred, who specializes in high end and luxury properties Uptown, said demand for houses in the “$3 million and up” range far outpaces supply. Sellers with million-dollar homes are getting above their asking price — provided the house is newly renovated.
“Things are going off (the luxury) market fast,” Dorion said. “It just has to be the right location, the right price and in mint condition.”
Brannon, who recently was shopping for houses Uptown for a client looking in the $850,000-to-$2 million range, said homes in top condition in the “sweet spot” between Magazine Street, Audubon Park, and St. Charles and Napoleon avenues were “flying off the market.”
Brannon eventually found him a “beautifully renovated home” Uptown near the river that cost more than $1 million.
Lafayette’s luxury market also is thriving. A home in River Ranch last week sold for more than $3 million, land records show. Another in River Ranch, the one-time home of oilfield tycoon Mike Moreno, is expected to close soon after being listed for $12.5 million.
The lower end of the market, meanwhile, is evaporating. In 2019, nearly 1 out of every 4 homes in Lafayette sold for $150,000 or below. So far in 2026, it’s been 1 out of almost every 10 homes, due to inflation and a smaller pool of first-time homebuyers, experts said.
“If there’s anything of concern that I have about the Lafayette Parish market, it’s that affordability aspect,” Bacque said. “We’ve lost a certain segment of the marketplace that I’m not sure we can replace.”
Chandler has seen a similar dynamic in the New Orleans area. Among her clients is a seller in Metairie with a three-bedroom cottage in a good neighborhood with an assumable mortgage at 3.5%, which is rare.
The house was listed for $215,000, about $250 a square foot, and didn’t move after a month on the market. The seller lowered the price by $10,000 and it’s still sitting.
“With a 3.5% mortgage, this house should have flown off the market,” said Chandler, who serves as president of the NOMAR board. “Meanwhile, you have bidding wars over $3 million properties.”
“There’s no rhyme or reason to it,” she said.
Staff writers Timothy Boone and Grace Mayer contributed reporting to this story.