By ALEX VEIGA, Associated Press Business Writer

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Skyrocketing housing values and a shortage of homes on the market gave homeowners the upper hand for years when it came time to sell. That’s no longer a given.

Across the country, it’s getting tougher for sellers to drive a hard bargain. A dearth of home shoppers who can afford to buy and uncertainty about the outlook for the economy, jobs and mortgage rates is putting pressure on sellers to give ground at the negotiating table.

In some markets, mainly in the South and West, homeowners who are eager to sell are more likely to give buyers a better deal. This could include a lower price, up-front money to nudge down the buyer’s mortgage rate, and funds for closing costs and any repairs or improvements that may pop up after the home inspection.

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The reasons: Would-be buyers balk at what they view as unreasonable asking prices, while at the same time new construction is giving buyers more options and putting pressure on sellers to make their homes more appealing.

As a result, while the national median home listing price rose slightly in July, some metro areas saw a decline, signaling a reversal in the power dynamic between buyers and sellers. It’s rare to see the type of eye-popping bidding wars that exploded home values by roughly 50% nationally earlier this decade. Low-ball offers are more common.

Despite this hopeful trend, the housing market remains mired in a slump. Sales of previously occupied U.S. homes are running about 1.3% below where they were through the first seven months of last year, when they sank to their lowest level in nearly 30 years.

The national median home listing price rose slightly in July from a year earlier to $439,450, according to Realtor.com. The real estate listing company found the most a homebuyer who earns the median U.S. household income can afford to spend on a home is $298,000. The analysis assumes a 20% down payment and a 30-year mortgage at a fixed rate of 6.74%. By those criteria, 7 out of 10 home shoppers are priced out of the market.

Homes linger on the market as sales slow

The housing market has been in a rut since 2022, when mortgage rates began climbing from historic lows. The number of homes available for sale sank while prices kept rising.

Nationally, more homes are going on sale and remaining unsold longer because buyers have been unwilling or unable to make a deal. Active listings — a tally that encompasses all homes on the market except those pending a finalized sale — increased in July for the 21st month in a row, climbing nearly 25% from a year earlier, according to Realtor.com.

The tide turns slowly

The inventory of homes for sale across the U.S. has increased gradually as the market has slowed and is now at a level where supply and demand are more balanced. But in states like Texas and Florida, the number of homes on the market has climbed sharply, partly because those states are hotbeds of new home construction.

Home shoppers may now have more leverage relative to sellers in the South and West, where home inventory has risen in the single digits, compared to pre-pandemic levels. Conditions are tougher in markets in the Midwest and Northeast, where the supply of homes remains 40% and 50% below pre-pandemic levels, respectively, according to Realtor.com.

Sellers feel the pinch and budge on price

After roughly two months on the market and three open houses, Doug McCormick’s home has yet to receive a single offer.

The retired business owner and his wife initially listed the 4-bedroom, 4.5-bath house located in Evergreen, a mountain community about 30 miles west of Denver, for $1.3 million. They lowered their asking price to about $1.28 million. That, too, failed to bring in a buyer.

McCormick, 80, says he’s hoping mortgage rates ease a bit and bring out more buyers. But he’s also considering just renting the property.

“That’s something that’s kind of in the back of my mind,” he said. “I keep reminding myself you only need one buyer.”

McCormick’s situation is not unique. As demand has slowed, more sellers have resorted to lowering their initial asking price — often multiple times — to no avail.

“Even though we are seeing a substantial amount of price reductions, sometimes it’s not enough to move the home, it’s still sitting,” said Annie Foushee, an agent with Redfin in Denver.

The median home listing price in Austin fell 4.9% in July from a year earlier, while in Miami it dropped 4.7%. Among other metro areas that had sharp drops in their listing price were: Chicago (4.4%), Los Angeles (4.2%) and Denver (4%).

When buyers are also sellers

Lindsay Olesberg and her husband, John, know what it’s like to navigate both sides of the housing slump.

The couple listed their 4-bedroom, 3.5-bath home outside Albuquerque for $835,000 in June 2024 after John, a research scientist, got a new job in Texas. The plan: Sell their house, move to Austin and buy a home there. It took more than a year, during which the couple lowered their asking price several times, temporarily took the home off the market and had some offers fall through.

In the end, they agreed to sell for $40,000 below their original listing price.

Buying a home was much easier. The Olesbergs had little trouble finding homes they liked and could afford in Austin, where home inventory was up nearly 60% in July compared to pre-pandemic levels.

They bought a five-bedroom, three-bath house in Austin for $735,000, or $30,000 below its initial listing price. The seller also agreed to cover $1,000 in fees.

“We got less for our house in New Mexico than we would have wanted,” said Lindsay Olesberg, 59, a Bible teacher. “But at the same time, you also knew it was a buyer’s market in Austin, so the prices were coming down.”

Taking homes off the market

In markets where buyers now have the upper hand, sellers who can afford to wait are often opting to pull their listing rather than be pressured into coming way down on price.

Tammy Tullis put her home in the Miami suburb of South Miami on the market in June. But the four-bedroom, 3.5-bath house didn’t receive many offers initially, so she dropped her $2.8 million asking price by $100,000. That helped drive turnout during an open house, but she only received low-ball offers.

“They were like $400,000-$500,000 off the mark,” said Tullis, 51.

Last month, the finance consultant took the listing down. She may relist it sooner, rather than later.

“I want to sell, but I’m not in a rush-rush,” Tullis said.

Lower rates ahead?

The Trump administration has pushed the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, saying doing so will help the housing market. But homebuyers – and politicians – should keep in mind that the central bank only directly influences short-term rates, while most mortgages are based on the yield of the 10-year Treasury. So, lower mortgage rates wouldn’t be a given, even if the Fed cuts rates in two weeks, as the market expects.

And while lower mortgage rates would boost home shoppers’ purchasing power, they also could bring in more buyers, giving sellers less incentive to keep lowering prices.

Economists generally expect the average rate on a 30-year mortgage to remain near the mid-6% range this year.

By HYUNG-JIN KIM and KIM TONG-HYUNG, Associated Press

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea’s foreign minister departed for the U.S. on Monday to finalize steps for the return of several hundred South Korean workers detained last week in a massive immigration raid in Georgia, as the incident caused confusion, shock and a sense of betrayal among many in the U.S.-allied nation.

The Sept. 4 raid on a battery factory under construction at a sprawling Hyundai auto plant in Georgia led to the detainment of 475 workers, more than 300 them South Koreans. Some of them were shown being shackled around their hands, ankles and waists in video released by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

South Korean Foreign Minister Cho Hyun holds his mobile phone before a session of the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee at the National Assembly in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Sept. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

South Korea announced Sunday the U.S. agreed to release the detained workers, saying it would send a charter plane to bring them home once final administrative steps are completed.

U.S. President Donald Trump, who earlier backed the raid, said Sunday night that the U.S. could work out an arrangement with South Korean workers to train U.S. citizens to do work such as battery and computer manufacturing.

South Korean political community roiled by the U.S. raid

Appearing at a legislative hearing before his departure, Foreign Minister Cho Hyun called the raid “a very serious matter” that he hadn’t anticipated at all, as many lawmakers lamented the American operation.

“If U.S. authorities detain hundreds of Koreans in this manner, almost like a military operation, how can South Korean companies investing in the U.S. continue to invest properly in the future?” said Cho Jeongsik, a lawmaker from the liberal governing Democratic Party.

This image from video provided by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via DVIDS shows manufacturing plant employees being escorted outside the Hyundai Motor Group’s electric vehicle plant, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025, in Ellabell, Ga. (Corey Bullard/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement via AP)

Another lawmaker, Kim Gi-hyeon from the conservative opposition People Power Party, said the “unacceptable” raid dealt South Korea a “severe blow that will be difficult to heal.”

Some lawmakers even called for the government to retaliate by investigating Americans who are alleged to work illegally in South Korea.

Seoul has expressed regret over the raid, but experts say it won’t likely take any major tit-for-tat measures given the country’s security dependence on the U.S. in deterring potential North Korean aggressions and other spheres of cooperation between the two countries, including business ties.

Many South Koreans are stunned by the U.S. raid

The Georgia operation was the latest in a series of workplace raids performed as part of the Trump administration’s mass deportation agenda, but it was Homeland Security Investigation’s largest enforcement operation on a single site. Many observers note that the state of Georgia is a symbol of the economic cooperation between the two countries since many large South Korean businesses operate factories and plan future investments there.

In South Korea, many remain stunned at the raid that came after the country in late July promised to pour hundreds of billions of dollars into U.S. investments as part of a tariff deal. Trump and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung also held their first summit meeting in Washington on Aug. 25.

“The way that Trump is pressuring the Korean government and inflicting damages on its people is very rough and unilateral,” said Kim Taewoo, former head of Seoul’s Korea Institute for National Unification. “Can this be forgotten easily in South Korea? In a long-term perspective, it won’t be good for U.S. national interests as well.”

In an editorial Monday, South Korea’s biggest newspaper, Chosun Ilbo, wrote that “Fundamental doubts emerge: What does the U.S. mean by ‘alliance,’ and are investment benefits guaranteed across administrations?”

Paik Wooyeal, a professor at Seoul’s Yonsei University, viewed the raid as a collision between a U.S. goal of restoring manufacturing with foreign investments, and a lack of visa and immigration systems that could support such an attempt.

Paik said that South Korean companies operating in the U.S. will likely suffer “a great confusion” as they would be forced to bring their workers back home to resolve visa issues. Such developments would also undermine U.S. interests, but Trump won’t likely make any concessions anytime soon, Paik said.

South Koreans question U.S. visa system

Steven Schrank, the lead Georgia agent of Homeland Security Investigations, said Friday that some of the detained workers had illegally crossed the U.S. border, while others had entered the country legally but had expired visas or had entered on a visa waiver that prohibited them from working.

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But South Korean officials and experts have expressed frustration over what they call the United States’ strict limits on H-1B or H-2B visas for high-skilled foreign workers to protect its domestic workforce, and its inaction on Seoul’s calls to expand work visas for skilled South Korean nationals. As a result, South Korean companies have been relying on short-term visitor visas or the Electronic System for Travel Authorization to send workers needed to launch manufacturing facilities or handle other setup tasks.

“The incident will inevitably exacerbate shortages of skilled workers with legal work authorization and create pressure for increases in labor costs, potentially disrupting operations and rising costs across major business projects in the United States,” South Korea’s Eugene Investment and Securities said in a report Monday.

Daishin Securities in a report said the Georgia raid could delay operations at the targeted battery plant, which was slated to begin production early next year, potentially affecting Hyundai’s EV business in America.

During Monday’s legislative hearing, Cho, the foreign minister, told lawmakers that the U.S. had “not responded adequately” to South Korea’s requests to expand visas for its workers, and that Seoul plans to use the Georgia raid as an opportunity to move related negotiations forward.

Cho said that some of the people detained in Georgia may need to return to the site to complete work at the factory, and that South Korean officials are negotiating with American authorities to ensure that those detained can reenter the United States.

“I will clearly point out to them that a delay in (the factory’s) completion would also cause significant losses for the United States,” Cho said.

By STEPHEN GROVES, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — National Guard troops patrolling the streets of U.S. cities. Weapons of war deployed against international gangs suspected of drug trafficking. Military bases and resources redirected to mass immigration enforcement operations.

President Donald Trump is swiftly implementing his vision of the military as an all-powerful tool for his policy goals. It’s ground that presidents have hardly ever crossed outside of times of war, and experts say it’s remaking the role of the most powerful military in the world and its relationship with the American public.

FILE – Armed National Guard soldiers from West Virginia patrol the Mall near the Labor Department in Washington, where a poster of President Donald Trump is displayed, Aug. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)

Yet as Trump has dramatically stepped up his use of military force, fellow Republicans in Congress — where authorization for such actions is supposed to originate — have done little but cheer him on. That’s giving the president significant leeway as he raises plans to send troops next to Chicago, Baltimore and New Orleans.

“If I were one of those mayors, I’d be glad to have the help,” said Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, speaking from a Capitol building where National Guard troops were patrolling the surrounding city. “I think the big city Democrats are really making a mistake. I think they’re being tone deaf.”

Lawmakers from Louisiana — a red state that surrounds politically blue New Orleans — said it was a great idea for National Guard troops to go there next.

“New Orleans, like most Democrat-run cities, has a high crime rate, so it would be helpful,” House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told The Associated Press.

Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., agreed: “We need all the help we can get. I’m delighted to bring in the National Guard.”

Republicans have in recent years found political success focusing on the issue of crime. The vast majority of Americans, 81%, see crime as a “major problem” in large cities, according to recent polling from the The AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. That includes nearly all Republicans, roughly three-quarters of independents and nearly 7 in 10 Democrats.

However, statistics show overall crime is down across the nation, with some cities reporting 30-year lows.

How Trump’s use of the National Guard is unique

In the past, the use of National Guard troops on American soil was reserved for extraordinary circumstances such as natural disasters or when local officials became overwhelmed by civil unrest or disorder. Rarely have presidents used the troops for law enforcement purposes.

FILE – Armed West Virginia National Guardsmen patrol at the Korean War Veterans Memorial, Aug. 26, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson, File)

Notable examples include the 1894 Pullman strike in Chicago, during the Civil Rights era to enforce desegregation in the South, and in 1992 during deadly rioting after police officers brutally beat motorist Rodney King and were acquitted on state charges.

Experts say that Trump’s crime mission stands out because he’s not responding to a particular crisis. Instead, Trump is using the military to implement his domestic policies, whether that means using military aircraft for deportation flights, beefing up military at the U.S.-Mexico border or ordering National Guard troops to be ready for law enforcement duties.

“All of these things indicate an administration that is making a broad, concerted effort to insert the military into civilian law enforcement in a way and on a scale that has no precedent in American history,” said Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center’s Liberty and National Security Program.

Trump says he has the “right” to send National Guard troops to the cities, even over the objections of state governors.

“I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it,” he said this past week.

A historic test

Congress under its constitutional duties has laid out laws that govern when and how the National Guard can be deployed domestically. But as Trump has pushed the limits of those laws, the Republican-controlled Congress has stood by. Instead, it’s been left to the courts to put any guardrails on Trump’s maximalist approach to the presidency.

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A federal judge ruled last week that the Trump administration “willfully” broke the Posse Comitatus Act, a nearly 150-year-old federal law that limits the U.S. military’s role in domestic law enforcement, when he sent National Guard troops to the Los Angeles area in early June after days of protests over immigration raids. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco noted Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth have stated they intend to deploy National Guard troops to other cities across the country, raising concerns they’re “creating a national police force with the President as its chief.”

That sort of use of the National Guard was just what the writers of the Constitution were trying to guard against, said Andrew Wiest, co-founder of the Center for the Study of the National Guard at the University of Southern Mississippi.

The young nation had just endured a war of independence that was sparked by a British military acting as a police force on the colony, and its early leaders were reticent to give the president too much control over the military. Since then, presidents have increasingly exercised more power over the troops that started as state-based militias.

“This is another one of those pendulum moments where the Guard will become more federal or maybe it will swing back in the other direction,” Wiest said. “But since the founding of the Republic, it’s been swinging towards the federal side.”

Today is Monday, Sept. 8, the 251st day of 2025. There are 114 days left in the year.

Today in history:

On Sept. 8, 1986, “The Oprah Winfrey Show” began the first of 25 seasons in national syndication.

Also on this date:

In 1504, Michelangelo’s towering marble statue of David was unveiled to the public in Florence, Italy.

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Today in History: September 7, Anglican church elevates Bishop Desmond Tutu

In 1565, a Spanish expedition established the first permanent European settlement in North America at present-day St. Augustine, Florida.

In 1664, the Dutch surrendered New Amsterdam to the British, who renamed it New York.

In 1900, Galveston, Texas, was struck by a hurricane that killed an estimated 8,000 people; it remains the deadliest natural disaster in U.S. history.

In 1935, Sen. Huey P. Long, D-La., was fatally shot in the Louisiana State Capitol building.

In 1941, the 900-day Siege of Leningrad by German forces began during World War II.

In 1951, a peace treaty with Japan was signed by 49 nations in San Francisco.

In 1957, Althea Gibson became the first Black tennis player to win the U.S. National Championships, now known as the U.S. Open.

In 1964, public schools in Prince Edward County, Virginia, reopened after being closed for five years by officials attempting to prevent court-ordered racial desegregation.

In 1974, one month after taking office, President Gerald R. Ford granted a “full, free, and absolute pardon” to former President Richard Nixon for any crimes committed during Nixon’s presidency.

In 2016, California and federal regulators fined Wells Fargo a combined $185 million, alleging the bank’s employees illegally opened millions of unauthorized accounts for their customers in order to meet aggressive sales goals.

In 2022, Queen Elizabeth II, who spent more than seven decades on the British throne, died at age 96; her then 73-year-old son became King Charles III.

Today’s Birthdays:

Former Sen. Sam Nunn, D-Georgia, is 87.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, is 84.
Civil rights activist Ruby Bridges is 71.
Author Terry Tempest Williams is 70.
Basketball Hall of Famer Maurice Cheeks is 69.
Actor Heather Thomas is 68.
Singer Aimee Mann is 65.
Actor Thomas Kretschmann is 63.
Alternative country singer Neko (NEE’-koh) Case is 55.
TV personality Brooke Burke is 54.
Actor Martin Freeman is 54.
Actor David Arquette is 54.
TV-radio personality Kennedy is 53.
Actor Larenz Tate is 50.
Singer-songwriter Pink is 46.
Actor Jonathan Taylor Thomas is 44.
Rapper Wiz Khalifa is 38.
MLB pitcher Gerrit Cole is 35.
Actor Gaten Matarazzo (TV: “Stranger Things”) is 23.