Original analysis of 15,839 active residential listings across the Austin metro. Buyer's market verdict with the math behind it, submarket rankings by price-cut rate, quarterly pick, and my Q4 2026 forecast. Every number is drawn directly from live ACTRIS MLS data.
Download the dataset (CSV) Media Kit & Press Useof Austin metro residential listings have already cut their price at least once. The average reduction is 8.6%. This isn't a slowdown anymore, it's a repricing.
The Austin metro market has shifted materially in the past four quarters. The single-family segment is more transparent than it's been in years, sellers are finally listing where the market actually is, and buyers have leverage they didn't have in 2022 or 2023.
The market has repriced, not stalled. 8,230 of 15,839 active residential listings, 52.0%, have taken at least one price reduction. Average cut: 8.6%. This is not sellers testing the market; this is sellers meeting the market.
Single-family dominates inventory 84 : 16 over condos and townhomes. Active residential breakdown: 13,242 SFR (median $499,900), 1,885 condos (median $379,990), and 264 townhomes (median $319,900). Condos are pricing per foot 30% higher than SFR ($413 vs $317/sqft), a downtown density premium that's compressing but hasn't gone away.
The pain is concentrated in the $500K-$1M band. Under $500K: 55% of listings have reduced. $500K-$1M: 52%. $1M-$2M: 46%. Over $2M: 36%. Luxury is holding meaningfully better than most people assume. The bottom half of the market is doing the work of repricing.
Central Austin condos are the softest segment. The five central ZIPs (78701, 78702, 78703, 78704, 78705) hold 769 condo and townhome listings at an average of $727,710. Downtown vertical inventory is the most oversupplied product type in the metro, and negotiation leverage there is at multi-year highs.
The buy-side is more active than headlines suggest. 5,773 homes are currently in-contract (Pending or Active Under Contract) against 15,839 active. That's a 36% engagement ratio, meaning for every 3 homes on the market, 1 is under contract right now. This is not a frozen market.
Builder inventory is dominating specific corridors. New construction is 17.6% of metro-wide active inventory, but concentrated in growth submarkets: Kyle (40%), Elgin (40%), Jarrell (43%), Hutto (29%). Buyers who want new-build finishes with rate buydowns and closing credits have unusual leverage from national builders trying to close their year.
You don't need a months-of-supply calculation to see this. You need the price-reduction rate, and 52% is definitive. In the seller's markets Austin ran from 2020 through mid-2022, reduction rates were 8-15%. In a balanced market, they run 20-30%. Above 45% for an entire metro is a buyer's market by every historical definition, and Q3 2026 is sitting at 52.0%.
The average days on market is 146. The median is 78. Both are elevated. The 68-day gap between mean and median tells you something specific: a long tail of overpriced listings is sitting for 4-6 months while properly-priced homes still move in 60-80 days. Priced right, homes still sell. Priced wrong, they rot.
This is the healthiest buyer's market Austin has produced in a decade. Not "healthy" as in "prices are climbing", healthy as in information is symmetric. Sellers know they have to price honestly. Buyers know they can negotiate. Nobody is chasing bidding wars or trying to time a peak. Every deal I've done since April has closed within 3% of the buyer's opening offer. That was not true 18 months ago.
Aggregate inventory numbers hide the story. What Austin actually has right now is a single-family market that's rebalancing and a condo market that's oversupplied in the core. Here's the breakdown.
Austin is fundamentally a single-family metro. The 84-16 split between SFR and attached product is unusual for a Top-10 metro, most peer cities (Denver, Nashville, Portland) run 65-35 or 70-30 in favor of SFR. Austin's outsized SFR share reflects two things: how much of the metro's growth is in outer-ring subdivisions, and how limited the condo market ever became during the 2020-2022 tower boom.
The most surprising number in this segment isn't the count, it's that condos are pricing 30% higher per square foot than single-family homes ($413 vs $317). That premium isn't crazy for downtown vertical inventory near amenities, but it's tight given that condo owners also carry HOA fees averaging $600-$900/month. When you convert HOA to effective mortgage payment (~$150K of loan value at current rates), the condo premium widens further. Buyers considering the condo path need to run the math with the HOA included, not next to it.
The $300K-$500K band is the largest single tier at 5,867 listings, 37% of the entire residential market. This is where most buyers actually shop and where the most inventory competition happens. If you're a household earning $130K-$175K, this tier is your reality, and it's where you have the most negotiating leverage.
Reduction rate is the cleanest single indicator of a market's true tightness. It measures how often sellers had to admit their first ask was wrong. In Q3 2026, they had to admit it a lot.
This chart inverts the usual narrative about Austin. Everyone assumed luxury was the softest segment because peak-2022 luxury asks were the most detached from reality. It turns out those sellers already capitulated. What's soft now is the middle: the $500K-$1M range, where the biggest gap between "what buyers can qualify for at 6.8% rates" and "what sellers hoped they'd get in 2022" still needs to close.
If you're a seller in the $500K-$1M range, the buyer pool at your price point is being cannibalized by the tier below and squeezed by rates above. Overprice by 5% and you'll sit for 4 months, then cut, then sit again. Buyers pattern-match instantly on stale listings, they think there's something wrong with the house. There usually isn't. The only thing wrong is the number.
Half the metro reducing is a share number. What buyers should actually care about is the size of the average reduction: 8.6%. On a $600K list price, that's a $51,600 reduction between original and current ask. And critically, that's the reduction that's already been baked in, the sale price will typically land another 2-4% below current list after negotiation. Your effective all-in discount from original ask is closer to 11-13% on a real transaction right now.
The 20 largest Austin metro submarkets ranked by inventory volume. Reduction rate tells you where buyers have the most leverage. Median price tells you where you can shop.
| ZIP | Area | Inventory | SFR | Condo/TH | New Con | Median Price | % Reduced |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 78641 | Leander | 633 | 607 | 20 | 106 | $535K | 51% |
| 78640 | Kyle | 575 | 532 | 25 | 228 | $332K | 57% |
| 78628 | Georgetown | 551 | 526 | 18 | 138 | $598K | 60% |
| 78660 | Pflugerville | 469 | 441 | 26 | 111 | $413K | 57% |
| 78642 | Liberty Hill | 467 | 460 | 1 | 170 | $575K | 54% |
| 78666 | San Marcos | 396 | 324 | 52 | 124 | $339K | 62% |
| 78634 | Hutto | 380 | 372 | 3 | 112 | $367K | 59% |
| 78704 | South Austin (Zilker/Bouldin) | 369 | 168 | 189 | 66 | $835K | 44% |
| 78633 | Georgetown (Sun City) | 360 | 357 | 3 | 93 | $468K | 59% |
| 78602 | Bastrop | 354 | 336 | 2 | 80 | $430K | 57% |
| 78645 | Lago Vista | 334 | 258 | 69 | 36 | $525K | 52% |
| 78610 | Buda | 321 | 304 | 11 | 73 | $379K | 51% |
| 78621 | Elgin | 318 | 304 | 0 | 127 | $313K | 53% |
| 78745 | South Austin (Manchaca) | 305 | 192 | 90 | 49 | $470K | 56% |
| 78653 | Manor | 284 | 275 | 8 | 96 | $363K | 48% |
| 78620 | Dripping Springs | 280 | 274 | 2 | 54 | $799K | 50% |
| 76537 | Jarrell | 276 | 264 | 6 | 118 | $283K | 57% |
| 78701 | Downtown Austin | 250 | 2 | 248 | 25 | $739K | 48% |
| 78705 | West Campus / UT | 209 | 11 | 195 | 0 | $325K | 35% |
| 78746 | Westlake / Eanes ISD | 145 | 130 | 15 | 3 | $2,695K | 43% |
San Marcos 78666 (62% reduced), Georgetown 78628 (60%), Georgetown 78633 (59%). These share a pattern: heavy 2020-2022 builder saturation followed by 2024-2025 rate compression that stranded the buyers who would have absorbed the pipeline. If you're a buyer with tolerance for a longer commute or Sun City-adjacent living, this is where builders are offering the largest rate buydowns and concession stacks. I've seen $30K-$50K in effective incentives on $400K-$600K new-builds in this belt over the last quarter.
78705 West Campus / UT (35% reduced), 78746 Westlake (43%), 78704 South Austin (44%). These are three completely different products with the same signal: constrained supply, sticky demand, and buyer pools that don't behave like the rest of the metro. West Campus is dominated by parent-purchased condos for UT students, that segment is rate-insensitive because parents are typically writing all-cash offers. Westlake is trophy-only demand, inventory turnover is glacial and pricing has held. 78704 is where every Austin transplant with $700K-$1.2M in cash actually wants to live, and that hasn't changed.
If you want to know where a market is actually going, look at where the reduction rate is lowest in a soft market. Those are the neighborhoods that will lead the recovery when it comes. In Q3 2026, that's 78704, 78746, and 78703. Not the outer belt where reductions are highest, the outer belt has the most work still to do.
Each quarter I'll name one submarket where the fundamentals are best positioned for buyers who plan to stay 3+ years. Not the cheapest area, not the hottest area, the one where the math actually works.
Manor is what most people got wrong about East Austin. Everyone kept looking south (Kyle, Buda) or north (Leander, Round Rock) as the affordable growth corridors. Manor is 15 minutes closer to downtown than any of them, sits in the direct path of Tesla and Samsung workforce housing, and has been quietly repricing since March. It also has the metro's healthiest supply-demand balance among affordable growth submarkets.
Why now: Manor's 48% reduction rate is 4 points below the metro average and 9-14 points below every peer growth submarket (Kyle 57%, Pflugerville 57%, Hutto 59%). That gap indicates demand is quietly absorbing supply here faster than the neighbors. Combined with a $363K median and a heavy new-construction concentration (34% of inventory), buyers get modern product at a starter-home price with materially less bidding competition than Manor will have in Q2 2027.
The risk: Manor is a bet on the East 290 corridor continuing to attract Tesla + Samsung employees who don't want to pay Round Rock or Cedar Park prices. If the tech relocation slows or one of those employers pulls back, the thesis softens. Still a defensible entry price, you're not paying for froth.
Everyone wants to time the bottom. Most people won't, and shouldn't try. But the data does tell you where in the cycle we probably are.
The Austin metro is in the late innings of its 2022-2026 repricing cycle. The evidence for "close to bottom" is real: reduction rates have plateaued around 50-55% for four consecutive quarters, the pending-to-active ratio at 36% shows buyer engagement, and the median-DOM stat holding at 78 days means well-priced homes are still moving in under three months. Sellers who were going to capitulate largely have.
But there are two reasons Q3 2026 is not the absolute floor for the average buyer:
Rate math. Freddie Mac's 30-year fixed is still running north of 6.5%. Every 50 basis-point drop expands the qualifiable-buyer pool by roughly 8-10%. Until the Fed meaningfully signals cuts, Austin's demand ceiling stays where it is. My base case is that rates trend toward 5.9%-6.1% by mid-2027, and Austin's median SFR will grind down another 2-4% before that math flips.
Builder overhang. National builders (Lennar, D.R. Horton, KB) still have year-end inventory targets to hit in the Kyle-Hutto-Manor corridor. Q4 2026 will bring another round of aggressive incentives (rate buydowns to 5.25%, closing credits of $20K-$40K, extended rate locks). Resale sellers in those same submarkets will have to price against those subsidies, which puts additional downward pressure on the outer ring in Q4.
The average buyer doesn't need to catch the exact bottom. They need to buy a house they'll still love in Q4 2028 at a price that pencils with rates they can realistically refinance out of. Right now, both conditions are true in the $400K-$700K SFR range in specific submarkets. If you're waiting for the "bottom," you're going to buy in a scrum in 2027 alongside every other buyer who was also waiting. The people getting the best deals in Q4 2026 are the ones acting on what the data already shows.
Not vibes. Testable calls I'll grade myself on in the Q4 report in January.
Buyer and seller strategies tailored to the actual state of the market, not the market you wish you were in.
This report is licensed CC BY 4.0, you're free to cite it, quote it, republish sections, and use the charts with attribution to Luke Allen and a link to this page. Below is everything you need to file fast.
Full CSV of 15,839 active residential listings by ZIP with type, median price, reduction rate, and new-construction share.
Download CSVNeed a specific slice, one submarket, one price tier, condos only, SFR only? Email me and I'll pull it usually the same day.
Request PullOn the record, quotable, and always available on short notice. Studio or on-location. I'll also do email Q&A for print deadlines.
Book InterviewLuke Allen, licensed Texas Realtor (TREC #788149), Austin metro market specialist since 2019. Bio and 300 dpi headshot available.
View BioComplete boilerplate release built around this report's key findings. Ready to paste into a wire submission or newsroom draft.
Request ReleaseFull methodology below. Data is from ACTRIS MLS as of Q3 2026 sync. All calculations reproducible from the CSV.
Read Methodology
Licensed Texas Realtor (TREC #788149), Austin metro market since 2019. Publishes quarterly Austin housing analysis with original ACTRIS MLS data. Focuses on Central and East Austin residential transactions, with additional coverage of the Kyle, Buda, Pflugerville, Round Rock, Leander, and Manor growth corridors.
Source. All raw data drawn from ACTRIS MLS via the IDX-authorized feed powering austintxhomes.co. Q3 2026 snapshot as of the most recent sync date.
Analysis restricted to active residential listings priced at $75,000 or above. Residential means Single Family Residence, Condominium, Townhouse, Duplex, and Manufactured Home, excludes raw land, commercial, and mixed-use. Under-$75K filter removes rental listings that occasionally bleed into for-sale queries.
Reduction rate is derived from the ACTRIS OriginalListPrice field vs. current list_price. A listing counts as "reduced" if OriginalListPrice > list_price. Average reduction percentage is calculated across only the subset that has reduced, not diluted by unreduced listings.
All medians use the true 50th percentile of the filtered listing pool, not an average. This matters at the metro level where a small number of $10M+ estates can shift means by $30K-$50K.
Uses the ACTRIS new_construction_yn boolean field. Includes both spec homes and to-be-built inventory that has been listed. Does not include unlisted pipeline.
Calculated from listing_contract_date to Q3 sync date rather than the ACTRIS days_on_market field (which is sparse for older active listings).
Grouped by 5-digit ZIP code with a minimum-inventory threshold of 40 listings for inclusion in the reduction-rate rankings. Below that threshold, the reduction rate is noisy enough that ranks are unstable quarter-to-quarter.
This report and dataset are published under CC BY 4.0. Free to cite, republish, and remix with attribution to Luke Allen and a link back to this page.
Report published July 19, 2026. Corrections and updates: [email protected]. The Q4 2026 report will publish in mid-October and will grade the predictions in this document.