Wise MIS™ Metrics
Sweat Index™ September 2026
In three months, Sweat Index™ went from a seller-side reading (Buyers are sweating) to a deep buyer-side reading (Sellers are sweating). September was the break.
Sweat is Emerson Real Estate’s supply-and-demand stress gauge. Above zero favors sellers. Below zero favors buyers. Zero is neutral. It is not a median, and it is not a forecast.
The Composite Average, built from the 52 zip codes:
| Month | Sweat | Zip codes below zero |
| June 26 | 58% | 14 of 52 |
| July | 20% | 23 of 52 |
| August | −10% | 28 of 52 |
| September | −68% | 45 of 52 |
August to September was about **59 percentage points** in one month. June to September was about **126 percentage points**, and the sign flipped. In June, 38 zip codes were positive. In September, 7 were.
That is the useful part for a house. A portal can tell you the median slipped from $591,000 to $583,000. Sweat says the stress under that price changed sides. June was a seller-stress month. September is a buyer-stress month. The median did not fall 68%. The stress reading did.
Counties, September versus August
| County | August Sweat | September Sweat |
| Sacramento | +4% | -64% |
| El Dorado | -20% | -64% |
| Placer | 0% | −55% |
Sacramento is the clean version of the move. The county series was still slightly on the seller side in August. It is −64% in September. El Dorado was already negative and got much more so. Placer’s September reading is −55%, the least negative of the three. Placer’s August county Sweat was zero.
Not every zip went along
22 zip codes flipped from positive Sweat to negative. 5 flipped the other way.
The hard flips toward buyers include Orangevale, from +220% to −177%, and Elk Grove 95758, from +148% to −203%. East Sacramento went the other direction, from −217% to +197%.
What this is not
September is not the deepest Sweat on this record. Late 2022 was near −200%. September 2026 ranks about the middle of the pack on the level. The strike is the turn: seller-side in June, buyer-side by −68% in September. It is also not a 12-year September low. The app does not flag one.
Read it next to inventory and Appetite before you treat −68% as the whole month.
