Austin Real Estate Market Update: 100 Years of Data and Where It Stands Now

Key Insights

• Austin's median home price appears to have found a floor around $410K-$430K after peaking at $525K in 2022, with July 2026 sitting at $435K.
• July closed sales were up 4.4% year-over-year, active listings were down 10%, and months of inventory sat at 4.6-4.7, right in the 4-to-6-month equilibrium range.
• Luxury is the fastest-moving price segment right now: homes over $1 million averaged just 58 days on market in July, compared to 82 days for homes in the $250K-$300K entry-level range.
• Days on market varies enormously by zip code, from 34 days in Round Rock to 96 days in New Braunfels, underscoring that there's no single "Austin market."
• Builders are adjusting to a widening gap with resale homes, the largest new-construction-versus-resale split since 2011, by building smaller homes, building further out, and offering rate buydowns and closing cost credits.

The Austin Board of Realtors turned 100 years old this September, and at its centennial summit, Unlock MLS chief economist Vaike O'Grady used the milestone to do something more useful than nostalgia: lay out exactly where the Austin market has been over the past century, and exactly where it stands right now, zip code by zip code.

The headline isn't complicated. Austin found a floor after the 2022 peak, and the market is stabilizing rather than either booming or collapsing. But the details underneath that headline, which zip codes are actually moving, how luxury and entry-level homes are behaving completely differently, and what's happening with new construction versus resale, are exactly the kind of specifics that get lost in a citywide average.

A Century of Austin Housing, By the Numbers

When ABOR was founded in 1926, Austin had roughly 53,000 residents, no MLS, and no comparable sales data, a listing was simply whatever the agent said it was. O'Grady traced the region's growth from that starting point to today's 2.6 million people across Central Texas, with the Texas Demographic Center projecting the region will reach 4.6 million by 2060.

Looking just at the past 25 years, O'Grady described "five Austins": the dot-com bust, the recovery that followed, the pre-pandemic scale-up, the post-pandemic surge, and the reset the market is working through now. Every one of those cycles, she noted, began and ended with the same driver: jobs.

The jump from $303K in 2019 to $525K at the 2022 peak, a 73% increase in three years, was never going to hold, and the pullback since has been the market's way of working that back out. O'Grady's read is that the market found its floor somewhere around $430K, though she flagged that August 2026 numbers were coming in softer than July's strong showing.

Where the Market Stands in Mid-2026

July's numbers told a genuinely encouraging story on the surface: 2,739 closed sales, up 4.4% year-over-year, with pending sales up 10% at midyear, a number O'Grady called the single most useful metric to watch because it signals where the market is headed rather than where it's already been. Active listings were down 10%, and months of inventory sat at 4.6 to 4.7 months, squarely in the 4-to-6-month range considered a balanced market.

That said, inventory has been sliding, particularly within the City of Austin itself, which means the "buyer's market" framing that's dominated the last couple of years may be starting to shift, even if it hasn't fully reversed. On the rental side, the picture is tightening too: closed leases were down in July, active lease listings were down, and pending leases were still up, a sign that available rental supply is getting absorbed. O'Grady connected this to the broader apartment construction slowdown: developers built heavily in recent years, have now pulled back sharply, and that supply cliff is expected to push rents back up in 2027 and 2028 after a period of declines.

It's Not One Market: What the Zip Code Data Shows

One of O'Grady's central points was that "Central Texas market" is a misleading phrase, the real story is granular. Unlock MLS's zip code scorecard, which scores each zip code on how quickly homes are selling relative to price range, whether prices are holding, and exposure to high-end inventory, showed just how wide that variation is. Days on market ranged from as little as 34 days in Round Rock to as much as 96 days in New Braunfels, two submarkets that sit less than an hour apart.

On pricing, only 19 of the 52 zip codes tracked had a higher median price than the same month a year earlier. Some of the steepest declines require careful reading rather than face value: zip code 78746 (Westlake) saw its median price fall 24.7% year-over-year, but the median still sat at $1.8 million, a reminder that with low sales volume in ultra-luxury zip codes, a handful of transactions can swing the median dramatically without reflecting a real shift in value.

Luxury Is Moving, Entry-Level Is Squeezed

Perhaps the most counterintuitive finding: luxury is currently the fastest-moving price segment in the Austin market, not the slowest. Homes priced at $1 million and above, which still make up roughly 10% of Austin's sales, averaged just 58 days on market in July. Compare that to homes in the $250,000 to $300,000 range, which averaged 82 days on market over the same period.

The explanation comes down to financing sensitivity. Luxury buyers are largely insulated from mortgage rate movements, many aren't financing at all, while entry-level buyers are being squeezed simultaneously by mortgage rates, rising insurance costs, and property taxes eating into how much home their income can actually support. That combination is doing more to slow the entry-level segment than any lack of buyer demand. Our own Austin luxury real estate market guide goes deeper on what's driving that segment specifically.

New Construction vs. Resale: The Widest Gap Since 2011

Builders haven't pulled back from Central Texas, they've adapted. O'Grady pointed to the widest split between new construction and resale performance since 2011, with builders adjusting by building smaller homes, building further from the urban core, and leaning on incentives resale sellers can't easily match: mortgage rate buydowns, closing cost credits, and waived lot premiums. New construction homes have been moving in an average of 35 days.

For a seller competing against new inventory in the same zip code, that's a genuine competitive threat that needs to be priced and marketed around, not ignored. The gap matters far more in some zip codes than others, so understanding whether new construction is actually a factor in a specific listing's immediate market is worth checking before setting a price.

Who's Still Moving to Austin

Despite a cooling market, in-migration hasn't stopped. O'Grady cited data showing roughly 12% of people moving into Travis County are relocating from more than 1,000 miles away, and noted Texas continues to rank among the top destination states nationally for interstate movers, even as outmigration has grown somewhat in parallel. Performance varies by county: Williamson County continues to perform well, while Hays, Bastrop, and Caldwell counties have shown softer recent numbers, though O'Grady cautioned that Bastrop and Caldwell are small enough markets that percentage swings can look more dramatic than they are on a handful of transactions. For anyone weighing that move themselves, our guide to relocating to Austin covers the practical side of making that jump.

International investment remains a meaningful part of the picture as well: roughly $4 billion in international money flowed into Texas real estate over the past year, with the majority of those buyers already residing in the state, and Texas capturing roughly 12% of all international home purchases nationally, most commonly single-family homes in suburban submarkets, with buyers coming primarily from Mexico, India, and China. Our guide to investing in Austin real estate covers what that kind of buyer should know before purchasing here.

Jobs and Economic Momentum

Citing Opportunity Austin data, O'Grady noted the Austin region ranks as the second best-performing job market among the top 50 U.S. metros, trailing only Salt Lake City, with 23,800 jobs added over the past year, a 1.7% growth rate, and a 4.0% unemployment rate below both the Texas and national averages. Austin-Bergstrom International Airport also set passenger records in both June and July, with 12.9 million travelers passing through over the past year.

Recent notable business activity cited included Apollo Global Management establishing a strategic innovation hub in Austin, expected to bring hundreds of jobs, continued life sciences and defense-sector expansion, the former 3M campus being redeveloped into a high-tech data center hub, and continued strength in venture capital investment. Austin's airport has also picked up new international service, including a nonstop route to Guadalajara, alongside continued interest from major employers expanding into the broader Austin metro, including outlying counties like Milam and Williamson.

The Forecast for the Rest of 2026 and Into 2027

O'Grady's midyear numbers largely tracked her January predictions: she had forecast 15,000 to 16,000 closed sales for the first half of the year and the region came in at 15,698. For the full year, she's now projecting 28,000 to 29,000 closed sales, roughly in line with 2025's pace, and expects the median price to land somewhere between $410,000 and $420,000 by year-end, slightly below where the market sat at midyear.

Looking further out, she flagged the apartment supply cliff as the trend most likely to reshape affordability over the next two years: with new apartment construction way down, rents that have been falling are expected to reverse and start climbing again in 2027 and 2028 as available supply tightens, adding pressure on renters who might currently assume the discount will last indefinitely.

What This Means If You're Buying or Selling

Is now a good time to sell in Austin?

It depends heavily on price point and zip code rather than the market overall. Roughly half of current listings are needing a price adjustment within their first 30 days on market, so pricing realistically from day one matters more than it did during the boom years. Luxury sellers are in a genuinely strong position right now; entry-level sellers are competing harder, partly against new construction incentives that resale homes can't easily match.

Should renters expect prices to keep falling?

Not for much longer, according to this data. Apartment rents have been declining as a wave of recently built supply worked through the market, but new apartment construction has slowed sharply, and that supply cliff is expected to push rents back upward starting in 2027 and continuing into 2028. Renters who've been waiting for prices to drop further may want to reconsider that timeline.

Is Austin's luxury market really outperforming entry-level homes?

Yes, at least by days-on-market data through mid-2026. Homes priced above $1 million averaged 58 days on market in July, faster than the 82-day average for homes in the $250,000 to $300,000 range. Luxury buyers are less exposed to mortgage rate swings, while entry-level buyers are more affected by the combined weight of rates, insurance costs, and property taxes.

A hundred years in, the throughline in Austin's housing market hasn't changed much: jobs drive every cycle, prices lag behind what buyers and sellers want, and the "Central Texas market" is really dozens of smaller markets behaving differently at the same time. The current reset looks less like a crisis and more like the market settling into a pace it can actually sustain.